Tim Romano <[log in to unmask]> quotes Ezra Pound on the subject of the relations
between peasants and landowners in Italy, without comment.
I would ask, how do you interpret this quote?
Pound said,
"Get it into your head that Italy was, even in
1900, immeasurably ahead of England in so far as
land laws and the rights of the man who works on
the soil are concerned. Some of the follies and
cruelties of great English owners would not now
be permitted in Italy. Certain kinds of domestic
enemy would be shipped to the _confino_."
One might ask how relevant this is to the practices in fascist Italy?
"You can buy and own pretty villas and ancient
architectural triumphs, but you can't cut down olive-
trees just when you like and you can't drive the
"colonno" of his fields. He can, I think, still be
your "colonno" instead of the "colonno" of the
former proprietor, but you don't by any means own
him despite the feudal decorations or courtesy.
Secular habit, picturesque, etc., as in the case
of "the sailor." There is, near here, an antient
villa, and a nabob therein, and "the sailor"
just came and sat in the kitchen where there was
plenty of room, he adopted the villa, and he ulti-
mately adopted the chauffeur's seat, etc. That
don't prove anything about anything except certain
phases of mentality. "
Maybe Pound should have stuck with the first part of his sentence, "that
don't prove anything about anything . . .".
As far as certain phases of "mentality" are concerned, Pound quite often
praised the feudal and pre-feudal attitudes of Chinese land-lords, seeking
to find historical justifications for fascism. I will elaborate on this
below.
<<ask twice as much
from people with big houses as from people with
cottages and small flats. PRIMITIVE SENSE OF EQUITY
AND JUSTICE OR LATIN COMMON-SENSE."
[emphasis supplied]
-- EP
JEFFERSON and/or MUSSOLINI, chapter XV>>
Pound assertions about the servants seem to reveal a highly patriarchical
attitude toward the servant class, an attitude which does not even question
the economic basis of a system which allows the people in the "big houses"
or "small flats" to exploit the lower strata. He simply says the ultra-rich
who can afford servants pay more to their servants than the moderately rich
who can afford servants. What sort of insight is this? It seems a
carry-over into present times of the distinction between the poor serf and
the less poor serf, or the inhouse slave, and the field slave. What does
Pound's observation have to do with "EQUITY" in any meaningful modern sense
of the word? And what are the assertions about the Latin sense of equity
but undisguised racist statements about the supposed superiority of the
Latin race?
Let us look more carefully at the feudal and prefeudal mentality, which
Pound was so fond of.
In his essay "Mang Tze" Pound frequently praises what he called the "great
chapter" in the works of the Confucian philosopher Mencius, as setting out
the basis of an "equitable" system of a land tenure for Chinese peasants.
This is supposed to serve as a model for the modern social reformer.
The so-called "great chapter" in Mencius concerns the manner whereby the
surplus product has been extracted from agricultural workers in times past.
Mencius describes the systems devised by the founders of the Hsia, Yin , and
Chau (Zhou) dynasties for allotting "mau" (units of land to be cultivated by
the peasants). These systems of land alotment are contrasted with one
another, as are the systems of extracting the surplus product. (Recall we
are talking of systems which are well over five thousand years old, in the
case of Hsia).
The sovereign of Hsia enacted the fifty mau allot-
ment and the payment of a tax. The founder of Yin
enacted the seventy mau allotment, and the system
of mutual aid. The founder of Chau enacted the hun-
dred mau allotment and the share system. In reality
what was paid in all of these was a tithe. The share
system means mutual division. The aid system means
mutual dependence.
(Mencius I. iii. iii. 6).
This is the entirety of what Pound refers to as "the great chapter in
Mencius." By itself, it yields very little information. Of the three
methods "for regulating the lands," the text goes on to say, "there is no
system better than that of mutual aid," i.e., the second system put into
effect under the Yin dynasty (c. 1600-1027 B.C.).
Mencius' strong approval of this system had a significant impact on Pound's
economic thought. The poet likened the Yin system or "system of mutual aid"
to the Italian fascist system of "grain pools" or ammassi.
According to Legge, under the Yin system
630 mau were divided into nine equal allotments
of seventy mau each, the central one being reserved
for the government, and eight families on the other
eight uniting in its cultivation.
(Legge, The Chinese Classics, Vol II
"The Works of Mencius, 241).
I I
---I---I---
I I
---I---I---
I I
One might imagine a giant tic-tac-toe board # , with the central square as
the area jointly cultivated by the surrounding eight family-run plots.
Pound, in his essay "Mang Tsze (The Ethics of Mencius)," does print such a
symbol of this system, a large bounded tic-tac-toe board, which resembles
the Chinese character Ching3 (or Tsing). Ching3 # means "well or pit,"
according to Mathews, and represents "a village... divided between eight
families, the central square cultivated in common for tax purposes and
containing a village well...[or]... a design of the nine squares of the
village, the [middle] point marking the well." (K, 1084).
Underneath the illustration of the nine-square method in his essay "Mang
Tsze," Pound tries to show the relevance of Mencius' reflections on feudal
economy to the modern era. Straining in his use of modern terms to
transform the archaic into the innovative, Pound essentially paraphrases the
comments of Legge and Mencius concerning the Yin system.
The earlier politica of ammassi was as follows:
in a square divided in nine equal parts, the
central one was cultivated by the eight sur-
rounding families, and its produce went to the
administration. This was commuted to a ten
per cent on central or as you might say in the
metropolitan areas where "things aren't as simple
as all that." In an irregular country a just equiv-
alence of what would be an equal measuring of
flat acreage.
Marketing customs similarly equitable. The
profit motive is specifically denounced. I mean
you will get no more accurate translation of the
ideograms in Mencius' talk with King Hwey than
"profit motive."
("Mang Tsze", SP, 91)
To say there was no profit motive is a bit absurd. To say the ancient
system was EQUITABLE, was ridiculous. There was a process of extraction of
the surplus product BY THE LANDLORD, who employed a combination of slave
labor and serfdom. (I mean slave labor, literally). We are talking about
systems thousands of years old, where the peasants lived in complete
servitude, systems which in no way are comparable to the GENUINELY EQUITABLE
cooperative systems which were put forward by the Spanish Republicans in the
30's. Those were true systems of MUTUAL AID. based on democratic control of
the cooperatives by their members, and coordinated democratic confederation.
Yet Pound supported Mussolini's and Hitler's military intervention on the
behalf of Franco, as the latter suppressed some of the most innovative
attempts to create a genuine system of peasant controlled cooperatives
thoughout much of Spain.
If Pound truly believed in Chinese feudal and pre-feudal systems of
organizing production (as he appeared to) then he was consistent in
supporting Mussolini. Mussolini's fascism was the closest thing imaginable
in the twentieth century to a revival of the most reactionary forms of
feudal and pre-feudal social organization. The Mencian system and its
modern fascist equivalent guaranteed that peasants would remain dependent
semi-slaves, while the elite bureacratic class (and their landlord backers)
would retain control of profit, distribution, and the conditions of
production (without any interference from the laboring class).
Salut et fraternite,
Wei
http://www.geocities.com/weienlin/econ.html
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