Weapons of the Weak - Book Report/Review Example

Weapons of the Weak Weapons of the Weak: Everyday forms of Peasant Resistance written by James C. Scott is an ethnography which is based upon the Green Revolution in a Malaysian village, a place where Scott lived for eighteen months. The purpose of this book was to form an argument that the Marxian and Gramscian ideas about false consciousness and hegemony are incorrect. The major issue that is highlighted in the book Weapons of the Weak is that oppression and resistance are constantly changing and by focusing upon the historical events that are visible such as collective action or organized rebellions we can easily miss the powerful forms of every day resistance. Scott also focused upon the responses to domination by the peasant and slave societies by keeping in mind the cultural resistance and non-cooperation that was adapted by people over the time. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday forms of Peasant Resistance studies the Green Revolution which was a movement of double-cropping paddy i-e wet rice and the combine adoption of the harvesters to harvest and thresh such kind of rice’s. Scott paid attention to the changes Green Revolution bought for the poor along with their relations with the rich. The consequences it had in long term against the interest of poor were of dehumanized capitalism and less-efficiency but yet had more social class relations in the small village. The observable peasant rebellion in a Malaysian village are not the best way to understand peasant landlords relationships because they are uncommon, we have no idea about where and when they are expected and most commonly they do not have much impact. Scott looked at the everyday forms of resistance that are less visible such as ‘pilfering, slander and sabotage, self destructive behavior, foot-dragging, avoiding behavior, fake compliance’ rather than seeing the ‘resistance as organization’. The factors that shape the relations between the rich and the poor in rural Malaysia are the changes in land tenure, employment and mechanization to advance their own interest and to use shared values in order to control the distribution levels of status, work, land and grain. Scott gave the idea of resistance in the form of hidden transcripts which are the speaking and behaving ways that are established to fit particular people in a particular social setting which may be either dominant or oppressed. He also gave the idea of false consciousness which means that a person does not know her real and true interests. By considering false consciousness in the social relationships we can say that a woman does not know that it is her real interest to be obedient to her husband. According to Scott point of view hegemony is a part of sub consciousness and is internalized by the help of transcripts with resistance rather than by willfulness as it is dominated upon a person by others. Hidden transcripts and false consciousness has a clear relation because people who have hidden forms of power can keep certain issues and voices out of the agenda and similarly people who have less power can adopt the resistance strategies in order to hide their actions from the people who are powerful. According to Scott the mechanism of exerting power helped rich people to improve a lot and harmed the poor people. Initially, the mechanism of double cropping was a source of improvement to a lot of poor as it increased the wage labor. But soon the improvement was reversed by the arrival of combines that were more profitable and were used twice per year and helped in displacing the expensive labor. By this reversal the land was made more rich and the labor poor. It was noticed that the rich were getting richer and were leaving poor to their poverty with no choices other than migration to other cities. The poor were unable to stand the rich as they got negative impacts on family, psyche and social harmony. The economic and social relations of the village were reinforced by the introduction of new technology. The new technologies brought changes in ways of rice production such as the use of new practices of planting, combing other new technologies and reducing the opportunities of wages for poor farmers. These technologies were used by the rich farmers and soon they started considering themselves to operate in “something of an ideological vacuum”. We can also link the economic behavior with the social interactions as we notice that the richer were getting richer and poorer were getting poorer. It was the advancement of technology due to with rich farmers dependency over the poor laborers was decreased to a high extent and due to this decrease the rich famers stated to have very few village feast, reduced the seasonal gifts and so on as a result of which the interaction among the people of village started to suffer. Scott also explained how the political figures of UMNO and PAS explain how the rich people took away the work from the poor people with cruelty. It was also noticed that instead of going to the poor people for the material improvements they went to the members of the ruling parties. Scott in his book has also focused upon the difficulties in organizing collective action against progress or exploitation when the village next door provides the competition for capital or labor. It is noticed that those people who are winning cannot reduce the competition whereas those people who are losing cannot oppose the livelihoods loss which results in the low prices and the cheapest production process. The rich and poor both in this way lose their social harmony and their way of life and adapts to industrialization of the outside world. Scott also mentioned that the workload in this village is divided on the basis of gender that is male are given the works that are comparatively difficult as compare to the works given to the females. It is a male dominated village thus the family structure, wealth and political power are all under the control of males. Overall in Weapons of the Weak, Scott has realized that people are interested in economic progress, political economy and class relation. Scott viewed this village as authoritarian societies in which rich people were dominating over the poor people but he discussed the idea about how powerless people can still manage to influence different policies. Works Cited Scott, James C. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985. Internet resource. Read More