new series
33-34
community development
International Review of Community Development
International Edition of « C e n t r o S o c i a l e »
Sponsored by the « A d r i a n o O l i v e t t i » Foundation
Advisory Board
A. Ardigò, Istituto di Sociologia, Università di Bologna - G. Balandier, Sorbonne, Ecole Pratique des
Hautes Etudes, Paris - R. Bauer, Società Umanitaria, Milano - L. Benevolo, Facoltà di Architettura, Università di Venezia - M. Berry, International Federation of Settlements, New York - F. Botts, FAO, Roma - G. Calogero, Istituto di Filosofia, Università di Roma - M. Calogero Comandini, CEPAS, Roma - V. Casara, Esperta Educazione degli Adulti, Roma - G. Cigliano, Esperto Servizi Sociali, Roma - E. Clunies-Ross. Institute of Education, University of London - H. Desroche, Sorbonne, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris - /. Dumazedier, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris - A. Dunham, School of Social Work (Emeritus), University of Michigan - M. Fichera, Fondazione « A. Olivetti », Roma - E. Hytten, Div. Social Affairs, UN, Geneva - F. Lombardi, Istituto di Filosofia, Università di Roma - E. Lopes Cardozo, State University of Utrecht - A. Meister, Sorbonne, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris - L. Minlclier, Inter-national Cooperation Administration, Washington - G. Molino, Amministrazione Attività Assi-stenziali Italiane e Internazionali, Roma - G. Motta, Fondazione « A. Olivetti », Roma - R. Nisbet, Dept. of Sociology, University of California - C. Pellizzi, Istituto di Sociologia, Università di Firenze - E. Pusic, Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb - L. Quaroni, Facoltà di Architet-tura, Università di Roma - M. G. Ross, University of Toronto - M. Rossi-Doria, Osserva-torio di Economia Agraria, Università di Napoli - U. Serafini, Presidenza Consiglio Comuni d'Europa, Roma - M. Smith, Home Office, London - /. Spencer, Dept. of Social Work, University of Edinburgh - A. Todisco, Fondazione « A. Olivetti », Ivrea - A. Visalberghi, Istituto di Filosofia, Università di Roma - P. Volponi, Fondazione « A. Olivetti », Roma - E. de Vries, Institute of Social Studies (Emeritus), The Hague - .4. Zucconi, CEPAS, Roma.
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International Review
of Community Development, N. 33-34
Winter 1975
International Issue of " Centro Sociale", a. XXII, n. 124-126
C o n t e n t s - S o m m a i r e - Indice IO O. Fals Borda E.B. Hill -U. Himmelstrand and A. RudquisàO S€ K. Varga
, •
R.W. Friedrichs 2<b 1 N. Roling, J. Ascroft e F. Wa Chegè 11 S. AL Hale 37 R. G. Stokèsin
v
23 49 71 89 123 G. Schachter 137Innovative P r o c e s s e s in Social Change (.edited by Ellen B. Hill)
Preface
Innovative Processes in Social Change. (Moderniza-tion II). An Introduc(Moderniza-tion
Structural Contradictions, Predicaments and Social Change Some Theoretical and Empirical Observa-tion
La modernizzazione: un punto di vista ungherese A Critique of Talcott Parsons' View of the United States as the New " Lead "Society
Innovazione ed equità nello sviluppo rurale Barriers to Free Choice in Development
How Long is the Long Run: Race and Industrializa-tion
Growth and Development in the Mezzogiorno and in the United States
R. W. Benjamin 149 The Politicai Consequences of Postindustrialization 3 4
H. Teme 159 A. Meister 175
15 H. Griffiths 16 L.H.J. Groulx 3 3 G B. Yanoov (Chetkow) I. N. R. Gaur
189 Paramilitary Groups and Other Community Action Groups in Northern Ireland Today
207 L'animation urbaine: politisation pédagogique 221 The Measurement of Planned Community Change 235 Community Development Training: The Indian Point
of View
245 Riassunti italiani - English Summaries
Innovative Processes in
Social Change
Preface
by Orlando Fals Borda
The study of social change has undergone certain elaborations during the last years. The debate with radicai sociology at the World Congress of Sociology at Varna (Bulgaria) in 1970 made social scientists more keenly aware of structural contradictions in society, that impinged on their theoretical conceptions and methodologies. Interest increased in exploring the relation-ship between theory orientation and social action. The crises of Western capitalist countries and the plight and backwardness of the less developed world, brought the problem more clearly to the fore, both as a scientific and a politicai issue.
The recently formed Research Committee on Innovative Processes in Social Change of the International Sociological Association, attempted to state a position in regard to these scientific and politicai aspects of social change. During the 8th World Congress in Toronto (Canada) in 1974, the Committee meetings were organized around four subfects: Mechanisms of Innovation from Below; Innovation and Social Problems; Counterpoints in Social Change and Methods and Concepts in Social Change.
It was apparent that these subjects needed further elaboration and clarifi-cation. The papers presented were not particularly uniform. Yet, there was enough evidence from several parts of the world that the Committee's concern was justified and that it was worth while to continue in the pursuit of knowledge about these less researched aspects of social change.
and « barriers », and come out with partially unexpected, but probably valid conclusions.
Of course, much remains to be done in this novel and challenging field, and the Committee is getting ready to résumé its functions. Regional meetings and direct exchange of ideas among members, as well as the publication of a Bulletin are some of the activities planned for the next two years.
We express our appreciation to the International Review of Community Development for publishing an important segment of the work already done.
ORLANDO FALS BORDA
Chairman, ISA Research Committee on Innovative Processes in Social Change Bogotà, Colombia
Innovative Processes in Social Change
(Modernization II)
1. An Introduction
by Ellen B. Hill
The issues at stake in the social sciences are now in such rapid transforma-tion that the term Modernizatransforma-tion appeared slightly outmoded by the time the brand new Research Committee of the International Sociological Association (ISA) on Innovative Processes in Social Change, officially established in 1972, went the first time into print, i.e. about 18 months after a Working Group at the Varna World Congress had met on precisely that subject. By now, there may have occurred another turn of the screw and the New Sociology has become possibly less new and the crisis in sociology may have become less pertinent although not really resolved.
Thanks to historical events and practical experiences Criticai Sociologists have started to remember that they are sociologists after ali and that there may be more that unifies scholars than what keeps their brands apart, in spite of the only too naturai conflict between application of findings, as S.N. Eisenstadt has pointed out in a recent article dealing with the complex question of a multitude of sociological approaches.2 A story is being told
about a famous radicai professor who found himself in front of a student union that decided to restrict the reading assignments in his courses to so many pages and no more on the basis that no student ought to be required to work more than 40 hours a week, class attendance included. It is said that the dismayed victim of this confrontation took his leave to look for greener fields, that is to say for less " r a d i c a i " students. Trae or untrae as to facts, the morale of this tale is pertinent to the present day uncomfortable facet of the scientist's role in society.
It is not clear how much the most recent, if timid, return to rational aspirations among Western intellectuals can be ascribed to the disappointment with short lived emotional events à la 1968 that ultimately did not fulfill their promises, and what ought to be ascribed to the prolonged economie crisis that has hit the technologically advanced countries and makes people per force reality conscious and the " greening " of one country or another visibly absurd.3 Or is it just that intellectual fashions, like art movements, are so
overdone and overexposed that they do not last more than 5 years, at best, before appearing trite? Whatever the cause, there appears to be a reaction that may speli a revived respect for logicai thought and consequent action no longer to be condemned as " manipulation " based necessarily on evil intent.4
The first sociologists took it for granted that their findings would and should in the long run — and even in the short — produce social change, their main advantage being that they had few doubts how a desirable society would look. It is our bad luck that we have gone through so much social experimentation over the last 50 years and that our experiments have not satisfied anyone in spite, or because, of pluralistic values. Consequently, social criticism has become suspect because it has hardly changed the world into a better place, and social analysis is even more suspect because it really means to keep the world in the status quo and must therefore be conservative by definition. Result: while no brand of science has a very good name, the social sciences have the worst, their link to social policy being the most obvious. Today sociologists are extremely conscious of their precarious position (recently they were joined by economists in the same bind) and their low self-estime reflects in their production, most of ali in a field as spectacularly related to social problems as that of the techniques of induced social change.5
The ISA Research Committee on Innovative Processes in Social Change is in every sense of the word the step child of the Working Group on problems of modernization, where feelings ran high that Modernization was a term encompassing uncritically the ethnocentric view that ali people must modernize themselves, meaning that they will internalize Western values governing politics, economics and the cultural aspects of life, and that such a development
is unquestionably positive.6
because the membership of approximately 75 scholars was, and stili is, widely distributed over the face of the earth, and the organization of such research would demand close professional relationships as well as supporting institutions.
On the other hand, the 1974 World Congress of the ISA in Toronto permitted the meeting of about 25 of its members. Papers were read by a number of them — and also by other social scientists who were attracted by the subject without having formally joined the Committee — during four sessions concerned with mechanisms of innovation from below, innovation and social problems, counterpoints in social change, and methods and concepts in social change. Not ali papers were substantially geared to the themes the Committee Chairman, Orlando Fals Borda of Colombia, had spelled out in his cali for papers via the session headings. Nevertheless, we are attempting to document in this volume recent trends in sociological thought in regarding to the centrai concept as far as that is possible, hoping of course that our new publication will constitute a genuine logicai sequence to the first.
Anyone remembering that other collection will hardly fail to be struck by a definite change in tone if not in concerns. How typical this is for the field and how much it is the result of an accidental encounter of papers authored by persons who, for one reason or another, managed to come to Toronto is hard to decide, in fact impossible to establish. To this writer, however, it seemed as if something like fresh air passed through the sessions, something that had left much of the antagonism behind that permeated the meetings four years earlier. Now, after many more months have elapsed, it appears that research in development and social change is no longer an area of heated hostile argumentation, that their respective techniques can now be more rationally discussed and that their goals can be stated tentatively on ali sides of the politicai spectrum in spite of ideological disagreements and different points of departure. We owe this in part, no doubt, to the skewed direction of confrontation in development and social change: while " right " and " l e f t " are stili slogans we are apt to succumb to in ideological disputes, the vital fronts have visibly moved to the opposition between industriai nations and the countries that supply primarily the raw material*. As both sides are waking up to the fact that neither can live without the other, it is no longer the issue of annihilation of systems that is at stake but rather the redistribution of wealth produced by eventual co-existence. It is questionable if in these circumstances one can talk any longer about colonization or oppression through scientific institutions as a practical matter, an idea that loomed large in 1970.7
that they have been plying their trade. We would like to submit that social science stances and their resulting findings are no less valid because they do reflect the historical situation of the scholar, as his personal condition must necessarily determine his scientific perspective and his ultimate goals.8 We
have therefore, with full intent, added to our papers two others by scholars who were not present at the sessions but similarly concerned. Schachter's case study relates innovative processes in a depressed area to its unevenly developed national state and compares the outcome to a situation where the national setting is technologically highly developed. Benjamin studies the politicai consequences of post-industrialization, i.e. the influence on politicai life of an economie system as highly developed as we can presently visualize. If in 1970 the negative reaction to officiai over-optimism in development was vehement, it now sounds as if we had reached a reaction to overreaction. Our authors openly admit that many questions remain open: Is there a variety of induced social change that should be supported? Are there methods of social change that work and others that do not work, and if so which are they? In this connection what is the social scientist's role? And what is his role in specific politicai situations? How far is the politicai structure conducive or not to innovative processes, and what can be expected from the populations undergoing change? Is genuine participation feasible? These and many other questions, although not ali new, are now being asked with more modesty by many researchers, and here actual experience and recognition of honest difficulties are responsible. Hardly anyone versed in the history of the Third (and now the Fourth) World would seriously maintain that colonial exploitation makes for the one and only reason of lacking industrialization (although colonial powers are known to have reinforced existing pre-industrial situations that were favorable to them), nor would anyone familiar with the facts take the stand that the developing nations as a group simply refuse to make an effort on their own behalf and are just looking for endless handouts.
The articles that follow indicate just how much more tentative social scientists have become even in establishing models of social change and how they are aware that valid interpretation must start from a theoretical departure point that takes its origin from accumulated data.
locai history paramount and a better starting point than ideological indoctrination, however congenial.9
Varga, our one contributor to the sessions from a socialist country, presents the idea of Modernization in the frame of reference of a centrally directed economy, namely Hungary (and is, incidentally, at work on the analysis of empirical Hungarian data, testing indices of modernity so far applied only in capitalist countries). Integrating the writings of socialist and non-socialist social scientists he discusses the relationship between socialism and moder-nization with particular regard to aim-oriented and value-oriented systems and the implications the contradictions have for cultural survival. In his view serious defense mechanisms against modernization have just started to be scientifically analyzed, although they have been dealt with intuitively since a long time. Varga expects the newly acquired knowledge to be an effective tool for innovation.
Friedrichs conceives of innovative processes that will transform China into the coming " lead-society ", thus replacing the United States in its present role. He bases his prediction on a long list of characteristics a society must encompass and excludes one by one the First, Second, and — it goes without saying — the Third World as possible candidate. He is convinced that East Asia will be the locale and Western style the manner in which the " lead-society" will proceed. The author has lived and taught in that region and can therefore sustain his affirmations on the basis of theoretical constructs and personal expeirience.
South Africa racial threat and the centrai source of entrepreneurial power are both prolonging a discriminatory situation while industrialization visibly progresses.
Roling and his international team from two different African countries try to discover to what degree equity and innovation can live side by side without impeding efforts to induce desired social change. In a way, they substantiate the point Hale raises speaking about the imperfections of equalization by diffusion, as scarce government resources tend to be concentrated on a few progressive farmers in the hope that the effort will spread. Roling and his associates have undertaken an experiment in Kenya which concludes that it is possible to aim for alternative teehniques which proved effective with ali persons they reached directly and further influenced on the average another three farmers who had contact with the target persons. Ali told, it is apparent that the papers raise many more questions than they are able to answer as if to prove our point in regard to the present more mature status of inquiry into innovation processes. Apart from the purely politicai reasons we have touched upon that are simply stronger in this area than in most social science research fields, this may well have to do with increased sophistication concerning science's function in a problem-ridden world. On the other hand, once we have been able to establish that some teehniques do make for innovative processes that we approve of, their application will become a rule of thumb, as this has happened in any other human endeavor. It may also be that induced cross-societal transfer of innovation at its best proves less useful and surely less rapid than we have for two decades expected; in that case such experiments will die a naturai death without ideological burial ceremonies. Innovative processes, it is safe to predict, go on regardless if we are onlookers or movers as they have since time immemorial, while we are trying to learn about their direction and their optimum speed.
E L L E N B . H I L L
N o t e s
1 See: « La Modernizzazione », Centro Sociale, n. 106-108, 1972, pp. 3-192.
2 S . N . EISENSTADT, « Quelques réflexions sur la crise de la sociologie », Cahiers
Internationaux de sociologie, v. LVII, 1974, pp. 223-246.
3 In this connection see: T . B . BOTTOMORE, Sociology as Social Criticism (George
Alien and Unwin Ltd., London, 1975), in particular the introduction " Conservatism and Radicalism in Sociology", pp. 11-16. "...I cannot see that the cause of human liberation will be greatly helped by forsaking this [scientific rationalism] for the religious mysticism that grows so luxuriantly among the exponents of a non-scientific counter-culture ".
4 BOTTOMORE, op. cit.: " If the aim of sociology is taken to be the discovery of the
hidden mechanisms of social life, which is then communicated in the training of a small elite of 'social engineers ' this does entail the production and reproduction of a form of domination. But if the aim is seen as the diffusion through society of an understanding of how social relationships are established, persist, or can be changed — as a kind of public enlightenment — then its effects can well be seen as liberating", pp. 15-16.
5 The present ambiguous position of science, mainly in the American context, has been the subject of an entire issue of Daedalus, Summer 1974, under the headmg " Science and Its Public: The Changing Relationship ". For our discussion we refer especially to the article of EDWARD SHILS: " Faith, Utility, and Legitimacy of Science ,
pp. 1-16.
6 For a concise oyerview of the traditional approach to Modernization see: ERIK ALLARDT, " Modernization from the Perspective of Social Development ", International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, v. 10, nos. 2 and 3, 1973, pp. 109-120.
7 See- ORLANDO FALS BORDA, Ciencia propria y colonialismo intelectual (Nuestro Tiempo Mexico, 3rd edition, 1973). In a longitudinal perspective the processes of resistance to science and the problems of transfer of its values to traditional societies have been foremost investigated by JOSEPH BEN-DAVID in his work: The Scientist s Role in Society. A Comparative Study (Prentice Hall, Inc.: London, 1971).
8 It is hardly necessary to reiterate the discussion of this point as presented by
A W GOULDNER in " Anti-Minotaur: the myth of a value-free sociology ", Social Problems, 9 , Winter, 1962, pp. 199-213, and by ROBERT W. FRIEDRICHS in A Sociology of Sociology (Free Press: New York, 1970) among many others.
9 An interesting view off the beaten path on this subject was presented in Toronto
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'iteri-Strutturai Contradictions, Predicaments
and Social Change. Some Theoretical and
Empirical Observations
by Ulf H i m m e l s t r a n d and Anders R u d q u i s t
A n A l t e r n a t i v e t o M o d e r n i z a t i o n T h e o r y
Up till quite recently the dominant Western sociological school of thought regarding social change and development took off from the basic assumption that development essentially is the adoption of ideas and technical innovations such as those already in existence in Europe and North America. These modernization and westernization theories thus implied that development is equivalent to the acceptance of ready-made problem-solutions regardless of, firstly, their degree of fit with the kinds of problems constituting underdevelop-ment, and secondly, regardless of the ability of the acceptors to make innovations of their own concerned immediately with solving their own problems. In other words: Modernization theory focuses ali attention on problem-solutions and their diffusion, and completely neglects both the content of problems generated under conditions of underdevelopment, and the factors constraining or facilitating independent and innovative problem-solving capabilities with regard to problems of underdevelopment. Or to put it in an even more condensed form: Moderization theory lacks a realistic concept of underdevelopment, and must thus rely on a negation — the lack of development as understood in the West.
More recently modernization theory has been the target of considerable attack both from within and from other schools of thought. Internai criticism has focused mainly on two facts. Firstly, modernization theory has proved to have poor predictive power because of what is often called " resistance to change". Secondly, modernization (where it has taken place) has brought with it a lot of undesirable " side-effects " such as politicai corruption, inflation, the so-called " f i d e of rising expectations " with consecutive disappointments and " uninstitutionalized " politicai mobilization and unrest
leading to " politicai decay ". However, such shortcomings of modernization theory, supposedly, can be remedied by taking account of the greater com-plexity of the matter without sacrificing the basic assumptions involved. There is one complexity stili neglected by such revisionists within the modernization school: Underdevelopment itself, its origins, its maintenance, and the deepseated structural problems involved in eliminating under-development.
Among Marxists, doctrinary as well as independent and innovative, under-development and its dialectics is the heart of the matter of any realistic study of development. However, we will here disregard the more doctrinary economistic and deterministic interpretations of historical materialism, the contendere of which apply the derogatory term idealist to any sociologist who maintains that ideas and social consciousness may operate at least partially independently from the economie basis — not only reflecting its basic structure but also helping to transform and dissolve its contradictions. But in order to understand how a mobilization of the masses transforming them into a progressive and unresistable " material force " can take place through a widespread social consciousness we need a conceptual tool which allows us to identify and understand what happens at the intersection of objective and subjective circumstances. In our opinion the concept of Predicament is such a tool.
A predicament is a special kind of human action problem. The objective structures and processes which constitute it can be clarified. The subjective popular understanding of predicaments could be analysed and improved in such a way that it helps to spread a common understanding of what should be done — thus forging a multitude of shared subjective definitions of the situation into an objective material force of action whose direction and strength is adjusted to the contingencies of shared predicaments rather than to false ideological assumptions.
In this paper we will first discuss and illustrate the concept of predicament and the conditions which bring about different kinds of predicaments. We will then describe conditions, predicaments and social change in some rural parts of Colombia using the theoretical notions developed in the first part of the paper. These notions are offered as an alternative to modernization theory without in any way attempting to put forward another exhibit of Marxist orthodoxy.
The Concept o f P r e d i c a m e n t Explicated
perplexing situation from which it is difficult to disentagle oneself ". Synonyms are concepts like dilemma and quandary. A broader concept which would seem to subsume ali these is the concept of problem. But while a problem as well as a dilemma or a quandary would seem to include purely mental states as well as more concrete situations or conditions, a predicament would seem to have a more limited meaning implying something physical or social, involving material threats as well as impositions by other human beings, or (when defined in terms of effects) mainly such effects which are physically and not only mentally " trying ". The dictionary definitions speak of "dangerous", " embarrassing " or "perplexing" situations. That these situations are " sometimes comical " clearly indicates the social element involved. What is dangerous or embarrassing to one person, sometimes looks comical to an observer in a socially protected or superordinate position.
Hence, my own somewhat denaturated condensation: A predicament is a negatively valued position in a material and social structure from which it is difficult to escape. Later on we will see that predicaments sometimes reflect dialectical processes. Not only is it difficult to escape from the material and social structures involved; an attempt to escape mobilizes strong repressive forces making it even more difficult to escape.
Methodologically my definition implies that predicaments can be observed only through a combination of (1) intersubjectively valid observations of positions in material and social structures from which it is difficult to escape, and (2) of subjective attributions of negative value to such positions by (3) actors occupying or understanding such positions.
Firstly, it is obvious that no objectively observable position in a material or social structure is objectively a predicament. It becomes a predicament only as a result of a subjective definition of actors involved. This means that any study of predicaments must take off from a study of subjective definitions or more precisely of negative attitudes.
Secondly, we must answer the question whose negative attitudes should be studied. The most obvious answer would seem to be that we must turn to those actually occupying the positions involved. Here two difficulties emerge. One is that we do not as yet know which positions are in fact involved, since only negatively valued positions should be involved according to the definition, and since we have not yet solved the problem how to establish these negative evaluations.
lack of awareness of a number of current constraints and future threats related to this position.
One way around this methodological dilemma would be to disregard the masking and disfiguring of reality that could be involved, and stick to whatever negative evaluations occur in a sample of individuai as indicated by teehniques such as Osgood's semantic differential. Another way is to partially disqualify the people actually occupying various positions in given material and social structures, and leave to scientific expertise to evaluate popular evaluations, thus to correct for " false consciousness ".
A third way is what I wish to cali iterative reciprocai education as part of the research process. Education as part of the research process is very unconventional, of course. What I mean by iteration in this context should be clear from the following example. Taking off from given subjective attributions of negative value to a number of positions one goes on to take a closer look at the positions thus identified to sort them out and specify them in relationship to the structures involved before presenting them to those concerned in a second round to obtain their valuations once more, now on the basis of more precisely defined positions, whereafter another iteration of this recurring cyole may get us into an even more complex situation by unveiling that " those concerned " are a larger or more differentiated set of people than originally understood.
There are also other important methodological issues involved, but they are less difficult or at least of a more conventional nature. One such problem is how to establish the dificulty to escape from a given material or social structure. Another issue is the possibility of applying sophisticated iterative statistical teehniques of classification to delimit and identify joint classes of actors, of positions and value profiles across such positions among the actors involved.
In the absence of a more detailed discussion of such methods we must go on to suggest if not a taxonomy of predicaments then at least the building blocks for such a scheme of classification.
objective circumstances; it is also a necessary attribute in distinguishing the complex situation we cali a predicament from other kinds of conditions or situations.
At the next level we discern a set of individuai skills necessary to satisfy basic human needs in the given ecological and economie setting and, again, the societal processes, and the material and social structures which promote or hamper the development of such skills. Without such skills it may be difficult to escape the material and social structures generating deprivation of basic needs.
The next level concerns the ability of an individuai to organize and direct his individuai skills in interplay or conflict with other individuals in the pursuit of individuai or collective goals. A traditional way of handling this level is to measure social competence or " sociability ". Assuming that most people have an innate potential sufficient for developing the abilities acquired to organize and direct their skills as indicated above, a more interesting approach would be to look for such factors that obstruct or facilitate the development of such abilities. We could then focus attention on egoweaknesses, self-concepts with regard to personal and interpersonal competence, privatization versus class-consciousness, self-confidence versus self-estrangement, alienation and the like, and the processes which bring them about.
These psychological states, thus again, should only be considered as sign-posts helping us to recognize the objective circumstances involved, namely the societal processes and the material and social structures which bring about the various psychological states just indicated.
Without the ability just mentioned to organize and direct one's individuai skills in interplay or, if necessary, in conflict with others, even a person equipped with a number of individuai skills may find it difficult to escape the constraining material and social structures which prevent the satisfaction of his basic needs.
structures used to maintain, bargain or change the appropriation or distribution of production output. Then we will focus attention on the relative strength of progressive and conservative politicai forces 'in national politics, and their relationships of strength both to the bargaining power of private entrepreneurs or feudal or capitalist landlords, as the case may be, and to popular collective forces.
Collective organizational or bargaining structures may serve either a maintenance or reproductive function in the interest of some existing establish-ments, or be used as an organizational " weapon " against the interests of such establishments, and in the interest of change. Obviously such conflicts of interest may be conceived along several different dimensions of cleavage as done by Stein Rokkan, for instance, or in terms of some dichotomous or trichotomous scheme of class conflict. Whatever conception we choose, it is evident that the structures and processes which help to deflate or undermine the collective organizational or bargaining strength of one class or group of people, thereby making their predicament more serious, at the same time may improve, in relative terms, the collective strength of conflicting classes or groups. Furthermore, the fact that some people face very severe predicaments, may be the result of the attempts of other people to maintain or improve their position in society. It thus becomes difficult if not impossible to discuss the predicament of people as influenced by factors at this level except from one particular standpoint at a time.
To simplify our discussion, but also to satisfy our politicai predilections, we will pursue the remaining part of our discussion from one particular class standpoint: the standpoint of the broad masses of those who have nothing else to sell than their more or less over-exploited labour.
In considering the predicaments that might emerge at the level of collective organizational or bargaining strength we will thus first of ali point to the societal processes and material or social structures which contribute to weaken the collective organizational or bargaining strength of popular majorities.
Secondarily, we must consider the collective bargaining strength of big business. If matched by the strength of popular organizations, and of an effective welfare state, there would probably be a wide consensus in such a country that a strong and big business sector is good for everybody. If not thus matched, the outlook for the people would be considered more gloomy, if the power of big business increased a lot.
dependency of the whole national economy on the success, and supposedly the freedom from regulation of the export industry.
The threefold nature of our simple model of collective organizational or bargaining power makes it necessary to advance a rather complex formulation about the predicament constituting processes at this level. We say that the predicament of the people gets worse to the extent that they are exposed to societal processes and material or social structures which weaken the collective organizational and bargaining strength of trade unions, socialist and other progressive popular parties while simultaneously increasing the relative bargaining power of big business and supporting conservative politicai forces. We have now developed the basic concepts needed to construct a taxonomy of predicaments:
1. Exposure to societal processes and structures depriving basic human needs.
2. Exposure to societal processes and structures hampering the development of human skills.
3. Exposure to societal processes and structures hampering the development of ego strength and social consciousness. 4. Exposure to societal processes and structures weakening the
collective organizational or bargaining strength of populai majorities, and of progressive politicai forces in relation to the power of big business and their supporting conservative politicai forces.
If we convert each of these four points into questions to be answered by either yes or no, and construct a property space on the basis of the four dichotomous attributes thus obtained we obtain a space of 24 = 16 cells.
A closer analysis of this property space will probably reveal that some of its 16 cells disappear because of intercorrelations or interactions of the various processes involved. Among the remaining cells we may decide to exclude some from what we cali popular predicaments simply because they do not combine a sufficient number of constraining or threatening processes.
The kind of typological exercise just indicated could of course be carried out without more detailed empirical knowledge about the various processes involved and their presence in various kinds of societies. But in addition empirical research is needed. Here we will offer only a number of illustrative suggestions about processes which ought to be closely investigated in a comprehensive theory of predicaments.
occur? Another set of processes which may bring about the same results is the international separation of markets for labour and commodities. This is sometimes naively or deceptively treated as an expression of a mutually beneficiai international " division of labour " between developed and less developed countries. Through this separation of markets, labour increasingly becomes a matter of cost only in the underdeveloped countries, and not a demand-increasing factor in the market for commodities produced by workers in these countries. This leads to increasing uneployment and marginalization of labour in the underdeveloped areas. Development economists like Quijano and Amin, among others, have analysed these processes, but of course more wide-ranging empirical data are needed to further corroborate and illuminate them.
More wellknown are inflationary processes, cost induced or MNF induced (that is induced by multi-national firms). However, marginalist economics does not seem to come to grips with problems of inflation on the contemporary international scene. This area consequently should be one of the priority areas for the analysis of predicament-constituting processes.
In less developed areas, the transition from subsistence to export oriented cash-crop farming has been proved to cut individuals loose from the social security of kinship-based systems of mutuai aid (where such systems existed) without offering them much in exchange except isolation and increasingly expensive food stuffs. It is time to piece together and systematize social anthropological and survey data on these processes.
(b) Processes and structures hampering the development of human skills. These processes are most obvious in the relationships between highly developed and less developed segments within a country or in the international system. More conceptual clarification and research is needed on the vicious ciroles which maintain certain categories of people on a low skill level by first preventing their acquiring certain basic skills and then disqualifying them with reference to " universalistic " criteria of competence.
a consciousness, devoid of structure, of himself as an alienated individuai attempting to maintain himself and his family, or as an individuai consumer of services and commodities on a market, including also the market for welfare services paid by taxes. Surely these processes have different points of departure and different trajectories in kinship-based rural societies, feudal or capitalist agriculture, and in industrialized societies. In kinship-based rural societies without feudal exploitation — for instance in certain parts of Africa — there is certainly no class-consciousness to be destroyed, but stili there is no lack of empirical evidence indicating how either privatization or alienation, depending on the socio-economie status of those involved, accompany processes of agricultural commercialization. Thereby a previous sense of kinship support and responsibility and a social consciousness structured in these same terms is replaced not immediately by anything like class-consciousness but by a complete lack of social consciousness, or as we have just said, by either privatization of consciousness or alienation. This privatization and alienation, whether in rural or industriai societies, may in its turn influence the degree of support for collective organizations which are based on a structural definition of society, and instead express itself less by " voice " than by " exit ", in the Hirschman sense, thereby weakening the strength and the quality of output of collective popular organizations. To this we will return in one of the next paragraphs.
and managers. To what extent will they develop in a fascist direction, supported perhaps by inarticulate poujadist protest, to encourage use of naked repressive force to quell whatever is left of socially conscious collective organization among the masses of the people?
If such processes that weaken the collective organizational and bargaining strength of popular majorities and progressive politicai forces in relation to conservative forces and capital seem plausible in wealthy mixed economies with progressive social democratic governments, we may ask what we can expect in underdeveloped countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. First we must repeat that the social structures and power structures both within and between these continents are sufficiently dissimilar to dissuade us from too broad generalizations in spite of the great similarities of neocolonial dependency involved. For instance the actual use of repressive potential by conservative politicai establishments varies a great deal within and between the underdeveloped countries. So does the degree to which kinship structures have been shattered, and the extent to which they have been replaced by effective class-based collective organizations. But one conditional generalization we would venture is this: Whatever the variations just mentioned, we will find that the dependency on neo-colonial export trade in underdeveloped countries everywhere tends to create alliance between " compradore " capitalists and repressive politicai forces, whatever their strength, to suppress — if these forces are strong enough — the formation, maintenance and growth of collective popular organizations. This is a generalization which needs further testing, to be sure, in spite of the ampie evidence already available to illustrate it. In pursuing such research it would seem fruitful to include also comparisons with the more industrialized areas of the world. Of particular interest is the question to what extent changes in the power structures, similar to those we have suggested for the underdeveloped areas, take place in what one student has called the "peripheral metropoles " such as Canada and some of the smaller European countries.
Suggested R e s e a r c h o n P r e d i c a m e n t s a n d P r e d i c a m e n t - O r i e n t e d Action
Research is needed furthermore on the visibility of predicaments to the people and, on the " folklore " of predicaments. The effectiveness of various kinds of communication sources, contents and channels in improving the popular " sense of predicament " and decreasing " false consciousness " would also be an interesting object of research. Research is needed on actions and impediments to action springing from an understanding of predicaments — demands addressed to progressive politicians being one kind of popular Figure 1
Individuai probtcm-solving resources
action only. The sensitivity of progressive politicians in anticipating and understanding popular predicaments and demands is another important area of research.
In the following preliminary report from a study on a number of villages in Colombia we will be able to illustrate problems in some of the research areas just indicated. For instance we will discuss and illustrate some of the patterns of processes contributing to place individuals in various kinds of predicaments. For simplicity we will collapse the three first levels which in Various ways deal with threats to individuai resources (satisfaction of basic needs, development of skills and abilities), and discuss the threats to collective organizational resources separate from other aspects of the power structure. Joint developments of individuai and collective resources could then be represented by time paths in a two-dimensional surface such as in fig. 1.
collective resources, for instance the strength of their trade unions, is being undermined so as to render them defenceless in case of economie crisis which require more than just a little welfare as an antidote. In using the figure, one should be aware of the fact that one should draw different paths for different types of problems, and for different strata or social classes. This implies that one community could be represented by several paths or severa! diagrams pertaining to different problems and social classes.
In the best of ali worlds those classes who suffer from the most severe load of problems will have particularly favourable paths in the system of individuai and collective resources indicated in figure 1. But in most societies we will more likely find the most unfavourable paths in the system among those who suffer from the most severe problems. The figure can thus be used to represent several different types of deviations from " the best of ali worlds ". These deviations constitute just as many predicaments.
A Case Study f r o m C o l o m b i a
Fundamental for the understanding of the social structure of Mesitas — the name we have given to the community on which we concentrate in this paper — is knowledge about the geography and the economy on the area. Geographically the community covers three zones: the Tierra Caliente, located along the valleys below 1,000 meters above sea level, the Tierra Templada between 1,000 and 2,000 meters higher up on the slopes of the mountains, and Tierra Fria between 2,000 and 3,000 meters above sea level.
Most of our fieldwork was concentrated in the Tierra Templada area which is dominated by coffee-growing minifundios. This is the most urbanized part and contains the administrative center of the community. In this report we completely neglect the Tierra Fria which is dominated by larger pieces of property devoted to cattle-raising with smaller subsistence farms producing the daily paid labour needed for this production. To neglect Tierra Caliente in a similar way would be impossible. The absentee landlords owning the cattle-raising latifundios in this area not only used to visit the municipality about fortnightly to relax in their country mansions, but also play an extremely important role in the municipal structure through their intermediaries there and through their own contacts with the regional and national governments from their urban residences in the regional capital. However, the power of the absentee landlords is manifested not only in their ability to influence politicai decisions at higher levels with relevance for the locai community; they are also capable of obstructing or containing higher level decisions with regard to locai issues which are counter to their own interests.
another extension of the power of absentee landlords, it does have its own locai features and functions deserving some attention. Wealthy coffee growers, descendants of the first colonizers of this area and resident in the more urbanized areas of Tierra Templada provide the nucleus of the locai ruling class. In addition to intermediate or large landholdings in the coffee zone, some of these families own shops or agencies for the purchase and sale of coffee. These agencies at the same time operate as usurious credit agencies serving the poorer coffee growers.
More recent members of the landowning locai elite usually have arrived in Mesitas as government agents, and later acquired land. Land is the very basis of power in Mesitas, and what happens to land has extensive ramifications for the locai power structure.
In this context we will touch rather lightly on the executive, with the Mayor (Alcalde) at the top, down to the paramilitary police force which is recruited locally at lower levels but manned through national appointments at higher levels. Judges, doctors, agricultural officers, school superintendents, officers of the community development program Acción Comunal and of Federación Nacional de Cafeteros are ali similarly appointed nationally or regionally, but are accepted as part of the locai elite as long as they do not challenge its basic structure. " Disloyality " can lead to dismissal. The locai power structure uses the channels open to them through absentee landlords to regional and national governments. Status quo is thus jealously guarded. A key position connecting the locai economy and politics is occupied by Federación Nacional de Cafeteros. It has a monopoly over purchases and sales of coffee for export and also contributes the major part of funds for the locai infrastructure such as water, electricity and the building of schools in the more rural part of the community.
Another somewhat dynamic element in the recent history of this community is the populist politicai party Alianza Nacional Popular, ANAPO, which had a period of rapid mobilization also within this community in the late sixties. At that time the conservative party, which always had a very strong hold on Mesitas, wen through a period of internai strife with the more progressive elements of its members crossing over to ANAPO. In addition ANAPO succeeded in mobilizing a substantial number of previous non-voters. Intermittently ANAPO succeeded in winning a majority in the municipality together with a few liberals. Shaking but far from shattering the structure, ANAPO was soon to leave the politicai arena again. The traditional locai establishments, taken by surprise, slowly regained their position in the structure not by mobilizing a stronger popular support but by skillful manoeuvres at and beyond the limits of legality. Legally admissible were the successful attempts to use the internai heterogeneity of recruitment and the ambiguity of programs characteristic of the politicai competitor ANAPO. In addition, representatives of ANAPO were dismissed from their jobs and removed from their offices with the help of police but contrary to the constitution of the country. Appeals to higher regional and national levels were unsuccessful except at one point where the centrai authority had an ANAPO member as incumbent.
But even though the locai establishment thus were able to return to power, the events during this upheaval succeeded in stirring up a sense of group conflict in the locai community, and contributed to raise the level of politicai consciousness among many of the less privileged members of the community. In the remaining part of this paper we will look more closely at predicaments and action of the potentially and dialectically most dynamic elements of social change in Mesitas, namely the smaller minifundistas and the jornaleros Processes and Structures Depriving People of Resources to Satisfy Basic Human Needs
Ever since the earliest periods of colonization of the Tierra Caliente and Tierra Fria areas, the landholding structure has remained essentially the same. However, in the coffee zone — Tierra Templada — important structural changes have taken place and are stili going on.
Coffee cultivation in Colombia has been depicted most frequently as dominated by minifundios. Up till recently this was a true picture. But ali through the development of the coffee economy a slow process of concentration of land and capital has taken place. After 1950 this process gained momentum to attain a considerable force in the Sixties when the new high-yielding coffee breeds Caturra and Borbon were introduced.
processes — a slower one accounting for the age - old tendency toward concentration which we have already mentioned, and a more recent process similar to what has been described elsewhere in the world in connection with the so-called green revolution in agriculture.
Theoretically speaking the slower process started already at the end of the first period of pioneer colonization, that is once the last frontier of arable but uncultivated land had been passed. When no more uncultivated but arable land was available, the very large families of those days had to start dividing their land among their descendants. Since the demographic pressure continued to last, and in fact even today implies quite large families in this area, fragmentation of land has continued for several geenrations up to a point where landholdings have become too small to maintain a family. In this situation some coffee farmers have sold their land — mainly to larger landholders thereby contributing to the concentration of land and capital — while others have remained on the land but added to their income by taking employment as daily paid workers or tenants with coffee growers holding more land.
In the earlier phases of this process non-pecuniary forms of payment were more common, for instance in the form of a plot of land sufficient to raise subsistence crops for a worker and his family. The lack of land and the land hunger which accompanied the coffee boom made such forms of payment less popular among big coffee growers, and the land reform of 1961 through a law of 1968 reduced the non-pecuniary forms of payment even more, The explicit intention of this law was to transfer ownership of such subsistence plots to aparceros, that is latifundio-workers who for a certain number of years had been given the right to use such plots for subsistence. However, the result of this law was that the landlords discontinued aparceria as a form of payment well in advance before this law carne into effect, and completely changed over to monetary payment. But daily paid workers, for instance, receive pay only for about four months every year, namely during harvest time, unless they decide to start a nomadic existence as migratory workers from coffee farm to coffe farm, utilizing the varying harvest periods in the country as a whole.
The processes of land concentration and marginalization of microminifundistas either in the form of a " reserve army " of urban unemployed or as migratory jornaleros have more recently been accelerated by the second type of process which gained momentum with the introduction of Caturra and Borbon, the new breeds of coffee which have launched the so-called green revolution of coffee cultivation in Colombia.
Taking into account the higher purchase price for the new breeds of coffee, their three years of non-productive growth, and their greater need for fertilizers and skilled handling, the availability of credits is a very important factor in this so-called revolution. Poorer farmers always have greater difficulties in obtaining the credits they need.
The result of ali this is quite obvious. The better situated coffee growers have improved their situation as a result of the sale of the high-yielding and better priced Caturra and Borbon varieties, while the poorer farmers have found it difficult to compete both for credits and markets. As a result the wealthier coffee growers, when they wish to take advantage of the profitability of this new kind of coffee by expanding their area of land under cultivation, have been able to buy land rather cheaply from bankrupt poorer farmers who have lost the competition.
In addition to their difficulties of obtaining credit even from the Caja Agraria and Banco Cafetero who are supposed to have special programs of credits for minifundistas, these small-holders also suffer under the system of por adelantado. This implies that middlemen between the producers and the distributors purchase coffee before the harvest at a much lower price than the officiai one. A poor farmer who needs cash to finance the coming harvest, or otherwise needs credit, thus sells his harvest or part of it in advance of the actual harvest period. In 1962 these middlemen in Mesitas paid between 1,000 and 1,200 pesos for one carga coffee, tipo federación, which in fact had an officiai value of 1,610 pesos. A farmer who was forced to sell por adelantado thus lost between 400 and 600 pesos per carga. <1 carga = 11.5 kg).
To put it mildly, the processes discussed so far together contribute greatly to reverse or hamper the development of " individuai resources " among poorer farmers, while enriching the more wealthy coffee growers of this area. Another name for this process is exploitation. To understand the predicament of poorer farmers we must now ask whether there are any other processes, for instance those dealing with the mobilization of collective forces, which help to offset or compensate for lack of individuai resources.
Processes Hampering or Strengthening the Development of Popular Collective Resources
soon affiliateci with a national organization of cooperatives led by the Church as an expression of the social commitment of the Church and its desire to cross over class cleavages. This idealistic approach was not conducive to coping with the economie realities involved, however. The first few years after its inception the cooperative exhibited neither growth nor economie balance. As long as it remained inefficient it could also easily be accepted by the locai establishment. But when a young campesino with great naturai charisma took over the leadership of the cooperative and succeeded in recruiting an increasing number of enthusiastic members to the cooperative from the poorer farmers of Mesitas, and developing a greater independence from the Church, then the establishment reacted. First the Alcalde tried to make the leader use his position and his influence among campesinos to make them vote for the traditional conservative party — but he refused to cooperate. The Reverend Father who saw his position threatened since he would be held responsible by the higher church hierarchy for the severing of ties between the cooperative and the Church, then cooperated with the Alcalde and finally made it impossible for the young leader of the cooperative to stay on in Mesitas. Quite a number of members left the cooperative which again dropped to its previous level of economie inefficiency. However the experiences of poorer farmers and jornaleros during this short period of collective mobilization left their marks in their minds, and in 1972 a reorganization of the cooperative took place, with most of its leadership belonging to the opposition party ANAPO. But again, the future is uncertain. To the extent that the cooperative becomes an efficient instrument for raising credits by poorer farmers and jornaleros this would no doubt threaten the position of the middlemen who operate the por adelantado system, and who, by their wide-ranging contacts in the power structure, would also be in a position to strike back.
A Summary on Predicaments
If we now summarize and combine what we have observed regarding the development of individuai and collective resources in Mesitas, the following picture emerges (see fig. 1, p. 11).
from among the poorer farmers as the process of fragmentation of land had proceeded. As a result of this process the incomes of these families have decreased. It has become necessary to combine work on one's own plot of land with work for others. Dependency on credits has increared at the same time as the possibilities of obtaining credits has decreased as a result of the officiai policy to give more credit to the more credit-worthy. The introduction of new breeds of coffee further increased the distance between P and B in the 1960's. Their dependence on credits increased even more and quite a number of smaller farmers simply had to leave their land after having sold it cheaply to families belonging to B.
However, this predicament of increasing poverty without any visible escape helped to arouse popular enthusiasm first for the ANAPO movement and then also for the savings — and credit cooperative which we have just described. This implies a new upward slope of the regressive path so far described by P in figure 1: the collective problem-solving resources of the poorer families were seen to increase up to a point. But once these collective resources were seen to threaten the existing power structure dominated by the conservative party, the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros, their locai middlemen and also at least part of the Church then the repression struck the mobilizing collective forces of the people and forced them to relinquish their collective strength. This has also been represented in figure 1.
The better situated farmers have had no set-back of the same type except for a small set-back for the short period of ANAPO rule in Mesitas.
With a more quantitative approach than we were able to use in our field-work in Mesitas we would have been in a better position to make questions and inferences about the significance of differently shaped time paths in figure 1. For instance, would a more pronounced increase of individuai resources at the apex of collective mobilization but before the onset of repression, have a different effect on the likelihood of future remobilization of collective popular forces than a smaller increase of individuai resources at that juncture? And how much regress would the conservative establishment have to suffer in order to react with repression toward collective popular mobilization?
Instead of speculating about the significance of such quantitative features of time paths we will go on to introduce some qualitative notions regarding different kinds of social consciousness emerging as a result of successes and failure of collective popular mobilization. This we have done in figure 2 which is just a more complex version of figure 1.
We discern three different levels of social consciousness within collectivities: the consensus, group-conflict, and class-conflict definitions of the situation.
consensus-solutions are worked out through negotiations among equals or appeals to accepted authority, whereas group-conflict also involves institutionalized strife intended to remove the other party from power and thus make him " less equal " — but always according to the rules of the game.
This is also the main purpose of class-conflict. However, much clearer distinctions are mnde here with regard to the economie exploitation underlying Figure 2 Level of collective problem-solving resources Low High Class conflict High suppressed ' « consci Low Alienation Privatization
J
Level of individuai problem-solving resources
the conflict, and with regard to the type of struggle required to bring about a change in the structure of exploitation. Common rules of the game are absent or less likely to be followed.
Failures of collective mobilization may enhance one or the other form of social consciousness, or make those involved return to some more individualistic approach to problems of everyday life. Instead of consensus which is a concept implying social relations between participants in some common endeavour, we should here speak of privatized or alienated persons — those privatized being somewhat better situated people who can afford to solve their problems by private means while the alienated are left with little more than their sense of alienation.
not be interpreted too closely in terms of the two variables of individuai and collective resources involved — even if such interpretations could be quite interesting. Social consciousness is a third qualitative dimension which ,in order to simplify the figure, has been transposed on a two-dimensional surface without any intention of representing the relationship between this third variable and the other two variables involved.
The social processes we have observed among the poorer farmers and jornaleros of Mesitas started in a situation defined in consensus terms by those participating in the action. Connections, discussions and appeals directed to members of the locai power structure were the instruments involved at that stage. With the arrivai of ANAPO, the situation was redefined in terms of group conflict and collective problem-solving resources increased to a higher level — indeed up to the point of obtaining the majority in the locai administration through locai elections. This implied an advancement from box 1 to box 2 in the diagram with the situation stili defined in terms of group conflict within the established system containing traditional conservative representatives and the Alcalde (Mayor of Mesitas).
We recali, however, that the conservative establishment regained power through various unconstitutional manoeuvres and with the use of police repression. Those who supported ANAPO thus returned to box 1. However it would seem from our observations that the experience of failure in this group conflict affected the social consciousness of the participants in different ways. Small groups of conservatives and gamonales (locai politicai leaders) who joined ANAPO for opportunistic reasons returned to a consensus definition of the situation in preparation for a return to the conservative fold. Another group retained their group definition of the conflict and were reinforced in
their loyalty to ANAPO and decided to continue the fight and restore the locai power of ANAPO. A third group drew the conclusion that it was impossible to change the system, and work within it in order to change one's predicament. Like the others they moved back to box 1 with much less collective problem-solving resources than before but now with a class-definition of the situation and a new sense of urgency in seaching for an organization which in a more decisive way than ANAPO could operate as a collective popular force.
