The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam is a non-fiction book by University of California, San Diego political scientist Samuel L. Popkin. Originally conceived to be a reflection on the Vietnam Revolution, the book introduces the term "political economy" as a new theory of peasant behavior. Popkin surveys the precolonial, colonial, and revolutionary history of Vietnam seeking to understand the impact of outside shocks on peasant communities, and ultimately what led them to rebel. This book is a direct rebuttal of the moral economy school, led by Political Scientist James C. Scott and more particularly his book The Moral Economy of the Peasant. Popkin's political economy approach holds that peasants are rational, self-interested agents that act to maximize their own benefit. While the moral economy approach argues that emotions are the main drivers of peasant action, hence placing a great deal of importance on the norms and values of peasant communities, Popkin shows that peasants follow a rational investment logic when deciding to join a new political or religious movement or using state institutions. "What is rational for an individual", Popkin writes, "may be very different from what is rational for an entire village or collective".
Moral vs. political economy The Rational Peasant is published three years after James C. Scott's The Moral Economy of the Peasant and is articulated as a critique of Scott's arguments. Despite studying the same phenomenon, namely the impact of colonialism and capitalism of traditional agrarian societies of Southeast Asia, they both derive completely opposed theories of peasant behavior.
Moral economy according to Popkin Moral economists, Popkin writes, see peasants as fundamentally "antimarket", and "interpret violence as a defensive reaction against capitalism", and as an attempt to restore the moral underpinnings of the pre-capitalist society. Commercial activities like trading or buying and selling are not liked by peasants according to moral economists, seeing as they derive their welfare from suprafamily institutions like the village and the patron-client relationship. For moral economists, the market invariably damages the welfare of peasants. Popkin quotes historian Eric Hobsbawm who sees rural protests in nineteenth century Spain as natural following "the introduction of capitalist legal and social relationships". Thus, according to the moral economy approach, the moral basis of agrarian social relations is destroyed by what Popkin calls "the cash nexus". The critique of this approach is insidious in Popkin's writing. He writes that the "paternalistic ethos" of non-market peasant-landlord relationships are seen by moral economists are more humane and inherently better for peasants since they protect his survival at all times- but nothing more. The land is not private but common property, including for the landowner. Thus, it is the entire community that starves during hard times, as opposed to individuals. Popkin makes it clear he is not unilaterally rejecting the work of moral economists. In fact, he argues, the micro level of analysis pioneered by moral economists is necessary to use if one wants to understand peasant behavior. Furthermore, he also bases his analysis largely on the same two institutions which moral economists identified as central to agrarian communities: the village and patron-client relationships. However, Popkin sees central failures in the view that the subsistence ethic underpins the moral norms at the basis of society. Conflicts between group interests as well as the attraction for personal gain are not offshoot by village institutions which, in fact, accentuate the stratification of peasant society.
Introducing the political economy of peasant behaviour
Basic concepts Popkin argues that peasants are rational actors, carefully calculating costs and benefits of each action or decision in function of their private interest. Political economy, thus, is inherently linked with collective action problems and prisoner's dilemma. This book refutes the moral economists' central claim that norms and values shape society: "I expect to find [...] that norms are malleable, renegotiated, and shifting in accord with considerations of power and strategic interaction among individuals. There's always a tradeoff between conflicting and inconsistent norms." More particularly, Popkin challenges the assumption that such norms are "given". He wants to determine where those norms come from, and what makes them enforceable.
Investments and gambles Popkin notes that peasants make two types of investments: long term, and short term, which in turn enable them to make risky long-term investments. Peasants have the agency to determine whether they must invest in their own personal and private goods (their family, home, livestock, etc..) or on common goods (village infrastructure). Peasants can be selfish: Popkin finds that peasants in Tepotzlan did not help each other pay taxes. Furthermore, peasants know, according to Popkin, that prioritizing short-term prosperity and happiness can endanger the long term. The book argues that there are two kinds of subsistence crises:
The short-term starvation or other serious deadly concerns; Long run subsistence crisis where a household will not have enough resources to build and maintain a family over time. Thus, Popkin argues peasants are not only concerned with subsistence insurance but also gambling to protect their long-term security.
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