Agricultural policy is a "political issue"

Recently, I read Weber's article at the end of the 19th century, "the Special trend towards Capitalism in Germany", also known as "the Development trend of Rural Labor situation in the East of the Elbe River". Because finally, it involves a question about the reform of the land system, and Weber's policy proposition is related to the question of "what position is needed in the design of the land system".

Weber advocated that the state interfered with the land in the eastern region and nationalized the land and sold it to wealthy farmers through gradual acquisition, so as to curb the "cultural decline" caused by the large influx of Poland (Slavs) caused by the capitalization of the big Junker real estate in the eastern region. When I read it, the author felt a little baffled that the cause of state policy intervention in Juncker landlords was the "ethnic contradiction" of Polish immigrants objectively crowding out German agricultural workers, rather than economic problems: according to mainstream economists, the purpose of factor allocation is to achieve Pareto optimization without considering the source of factors or other social values, such as justice or culture.

This puts forward an important question for the author: is the problem of economic efficiency no longer a simple problem, but a systematic one? That's what Webber seems to be thinking. "the issue of economic policy is not only an economic issue, but also a political issue." one criterion of political issues is the increase or decrease of national power relative to other ethnic groups, which is not only related to economy (gross). And it involves the cultural and political contest, which is Weber's advice to the rising Germany: if you reach the highest level economically, you may not necessarily become a great power. Weber believes that economic policy has its political consequences, and its goal is not indisputably to expand production and develop economy, it must be subordinate to the political and cultural values of national interests.

There has always been a Juncker landlord in eastern Germany. In the process of competing with modern capitalism, it had to cope with and transform into a bourgeois entrepreneur, thus rationally considering the allocation of various elements. According to the social history, there is a lack of self-farming tradition in eastern Germany. Farmers generally rely on attached farmers, and farmers and land property (owners) implement a sharing system. "the traditional form of labor and social relations is bound by the rules governing real estate workers and farmers." In addition, farmers also have the right to graze on small plots of land and public land, which allows farmers' families to raise poultry and pigs, thus achieving a higher standard of living. After capitalist agriculture entered the eastern real estate, these common land rights were rapidly cancelled due to the increase in land prices, and the traditional dependent farmers and transitional in-kind subsidy farmers were quickly replaced by a new type of completely proletarian "agricultural workers" who received monetary wages.

Generally speaking, for these former "dependent farmers", the low standard of living is unbearable, because "capitalism allows to minimize the cost of maintaining reproduced labor": when wages cannot maintain the existing standard of living, they can only take other measures that can increase the total household income, in addition to the method of "family production". For example, housewives and children take part in household textiles to increase their income, and despite the decline in marginal wages, another way is to leave the eastern countryside, which creates a labor shortage in large real estate enterprises and provides opportunities for a large influx of Polish immigrants. But "Poles are accustomed to a low standard of living both materially and spiritually", allowing landlords to make more profits. Dazhou got a lot of cheap Polish labor and profits, but Weber was worried that the influx of Polish farmers changed the cultural decline in the east, based on cultural and ethnic considerations.

When Poles poured into eastern Germany, Weber worried that "the Germanic 'higher' culture was invaded by Poland's' lower 'civilization." Economically speaking, Juncker landlords in order to maintain competitiveness, the introduction of low-cost Polish immigrants is beneficial and harmless, but the resulting "polelization" in the east is against the interests of the nation as a whole. Therefore, Germans in the east should be protected. From this standpoint, Weber is nationalistic and above the national interest: he said at the beginning of this survey, "how does the general development of workers relate to the general development of the nation?" What are the prospects for workers? " Weber is not just speaking from a "class standpoint" as Marx predicted. It is obvious that Weber has gone beyond the narrow position of the interests of the big landlords, but in the interests of the nation-state. Although it is ultimately beneficial to the German "bourgeoisie"-Weber is against the big landlords in this sense, because of its political backwardness and economic narrow interests.

Weber obviously can not be regarded as speaking from the standpoint of the working class. Weber is not a "humanist" who sympathizes with the workers, and the foothold of his concern for the workers' prospects lies in the cultural superiority of the German nation. Although he was also concerned about the fate of workers under different relations of production and made comparisons, improving the treatment of workers and requiring the organization of the working class was never Weber's consideration. In terms of the value choice of policy propositions, Weber did not agree with any class position, but only made suggestions based on the prospect of the German nation after the investigation: out of the growth of national power, or "national reasons", the interests of the big landlord class can be adjusted. Weber said quite firmly: it is necessary to abandon the idea that "the current distribution of land and property in the east is an unshakeable foundation of political and social order" and that "in order to protect advanced German culture, it is appropriate to change the way of land distribution in the east."

Weber's policy is inspired by another part of Germany, Mecklenburg, which has an "internal colonization" policy, where there is a strong self-farming class, few people complain about labour shortages and there are few migrant workers. In places where (implying eastern real estate) destroyed the peasant class, the historical retribution was labour shortage, which led to the need to bring in a large number of Polish workers. As a result, the policy needs to design a denser population layout in order to stop the influx of slave-style Polish workers-a denser population layout, coupled with the superior culture of the German population, is conducive to the organization of workers. this is conducive to the improvement of the cultural level of workers, and even the right of association is not available to the Slavic Poles.

Weber's logic is: to stabilize German workers locally, we must provide them with a certain amount of land, form a class similar to "self-farmers", and be able to settle down. "the key to land distribution." It depends on whether there is a village where farmers live. On the contrary, it is that "freedom is equivalent to homelessness", which leads to the loss of a large number of workers.

However, in order to prevent the institutional creation of a large number of "small real estate" (small holders), they are only "satisfied with the lowest cultural pursuit" and must require the "internal colonization" policy not to go to the other extreme. Weber's prescription is the state's acquisition of land: internal colonization instead of private landlord colonization, by which the state has the means to regulate interests, and the state leases the land to "wealthy farmers". And provide loan support for land improvement and intensive farming. This is similar to the land system in which land is owned by the state and leased farmers operate and pay taxes, which is different from the system in which land leasers pay landlords to big landlords (depending on the farmer's system). It is also different from Dazhou's natural tendency to employ low-cost and culturally disadvantaged workers to engage in extensive grain farming. The reason is that this labor structure is only conducive to the income of real estate and is not conducive to the interests of the country as a whole, and this large real estate system is also different from the thoroughly capitalist mode of production of farm labourers.

Although such a policy will require state investment and purchase for the time being, it will ultimately be conducive to the long-term development of agriculture and fundamentally help to save the crisis of "cultural invasion". In this regard, Weber believed that the state itself (the German state as a personality carrier of the national will) should resume the plan of abandoning colonization on state-owned land in 1870. and use it as a powerful means of regulating interests (economic, cultural, political, etc.).