This was a very good article. Those of us who have spent time in the Mezzogiorno know the phenomena of the patron/client relationship quite well. I know from my own family, that some of these relationships date back to Roman times. (Or at least this is the family legend.) In actual fact, I do think some of them can be traced to pre-capitalist times.
What Hale describes closely fits the *clientela *system of ancient Rome. There are some of this in other societies across the world that I have experienced but they have a different cultural value and are closely related with "kinship-clan" identity. (South Korea for instance.) It should be made clear that such relationships are ancient. Like other pre-capitalist systems a *clientela system *should be analized as being with-in capitalism, as modifiers of capitalism, as being transformed by capitalism, but they are not capitalist in-themselves, anymore than a parent-child relationship is capitalist. As far as integrating such ideas into a Marxist analysis I would suggest that people first read some of the Marxist historians of ancient City-States and Northern Italian City-States who already have developed analyses of these relationships in their historical contexts. For sure it is a good and interesting project to analyze these relationships in the current context, but starting from the historical background should be a fruitful beginning. On Fri, Sep 25, 2020 at 7:53 AM Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > Suppose you’re waiting at the DMV. The wait, per usual, is dragging on and > the queue is long. Suddenly somebody enters the facility without checking > in and walks straight up to a window. The person assures the patiently > waiting crowd that the DMV employee is his niece. He proceeds to have his > vehicle-related business taken care of. For most Americans, this would be > utterly intolerable. However in Eurasian culture, specifically in ex-Soviet > countries, this is not only considered acceptable but is expected. If for > instance, the DMV employee told her uncle to wait like everybody else, > onlooking strangers would sneer at her with contempt: “That’s your family, > how could you do that to them?”. All throughout Eurasian culture, we find > these kinds of relations being employed by the ruling class to better > maintain their domination over society. > > > https://cosmonaut.blog/2020/09/24/henry-hales-theory-of-patronal-politics-a-marxist-perspective/ > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#1939): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/1939 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/77077669/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
