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When the first American marines arrived in Vietnam;-in, March }.9~5 they were, according to Phlhp Caputo, who was on6 of them, guided to the beaches of Danang (Tourane in Colonial Vietnam) by maps drawn by French cartographers. Similarly, American policy makers would have found, had they chosen to look, their best guide to the sociology of the quagmire .in the works of such French scholars as Yves Henry and Pierre Gourou. Gourou's classic The Peasants of the Tonkin Delta remains the starting point for all later writing about peasant revolution in Vietnam, but the long American involvement produced what James Scott has called a "boomlet" in the study of peasant revolution in Vietnam and elsewhere. 1 As the United States increases its military involvement in Central America it seems appropriate to inquire whether any of the scholarly theories developed in the earlier experience in Vietnam might generalize to fit still another peasant revolution half a world away. Neither sound foreign policy nor good social theory can be based on "explanations" which in fact apply only to one time and place. Consideration of the Central American revolution and the case of Guatemala in particular should provide information about both. The goal of this article, however, is principally theoretical; to test theories developed to explain one case, Vietnam, in a second and largely independent case, Guatemala. Scholarly analysis of the problem of peasant revolution in Vietnam has led to three different sets of theories, all of which make somewhat different predictions about the causes of peasant revolution in Vietnam and elsewhere and are, furthermore, at least in large part, mutually exclusive. The three theoretical perspectives might be called moral economy, political economy, and class conflict. The first two terms were used by Samuel Popkin in his book The Rational Peasant to distinguish his own perspective on Vietnam, which he calls "political economy," from the perspective he calls "moral economy,"
When the first American marines arrived in Vietnam;-in, March }.9~5 they were, according to Phlhp Caputo, who was on6 of them, guided to the beaches of Danang (Tourane in Colonial Vietnam) by maps drawn by French cartographers. Similarly, American policy makers would have found, had they chosen to look, their best guide to the sociology of the quagmire .in the works of such French scholars as Yves Henry and Pierre Gourou. Gourou's classic The Peasants of the Tonkin Delta remains the starting point for all later writing about peasant revolution in Vietnam, but the long American involvement produced what James Scott has called a "boomlet" in the study of peasant revolution in Vietnam and elsewhere. 1 As the United States increases its military involvement in Central America it seems appropriate to inquire whether any of the scholarly theories developed in the earlier experience in Vietnam might generalize to fit still another peasant revolution half a world away. Neither sound foreign policy nor good social theory can be based on "explanations" which in fact apply only to one time and place. Consideration of the Central American revolution and the case of Guatemala in particular should provide information about both. The goal of this article, however, is principally theoretical; to test theories developed to explain one case, Vietnam, in a second and largely independent case, Guatemala. Scholarly analysis of the problem of peasant revolution in Vietnam has led to three different sets of theories, all of which make somewhat different predictions about the causes of peasant revolution in Vietnam and elsewhere and are, furthermore, at least in large part, mutually exclusive. The three theoretical perspectives might be called moral economy, political economy, and class conflict. The first two terms were used by Samuel Popkin in his book The Rational Peasant to distinguish his own perspective on Vietnam, which he calls "political economy," from the perspective he calls "moral economy,"
Little by little heavy shadows and black night enveloped our fathers and grandfathers and us also, oh, my sons …!All of us were thus. We were born to die!The Annals of the Cakchiquels (ca. 1550–1600)The Maya of Guatemala are today, as they have been in the past, a dominated and beleaguered group. Few have expressed this enduring reality more poignantly than the late Oliver La Farge. Commenting forty years ago on why Kanjobal Indians take to drink, La Farge observed that “while these people undoubtedly suffer from drunkenness, one would hesitate to remove the bottle from them until the entire pattern of their lives is changed. They are an introverted people, consumed by internal fires which they cannot or dare not express, eternally chafing under the yoke of conquest, and never for a moment forgetting that they are a conquered people.”
Indigenous people will earn more if they get more schooling. Policy RsearchWod&ing peua disseminate the rindings of work in plogWSS and encourage the eschange of idcas among Bank ataffi'n$ allothers interestcd in developmentisuies.Thesepapers, distuibuted by theResearchAdvisory Staff,carry thenamesoftheauthors,reflect oly theirviews,andshould be used and cited accordingly.The findings, interpreations,and conclusions are the authors'own.They should not be auributed to the Worid Bank. its Board of Directors, its management, or any of its member countries.
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