The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America - autonomous ...

Pollution, Contradiction, and Salvation 115
to such exploitation, tells them what the two modes of production
are about. For them self-renewal and self-extinction are more than
mere metaphors for contrasting the two systems. These principles
are engraved in the flesh and contours of their bodies, and the people
themselves perceive this. The contrast is evident, and self-critical,
precisely because they directly experience the inescapable contradiction
between peasant and agribusiness labor. Each is necessary,
yet each is insufficient for life.
Social differences, as well as physical differences, distinguish the
two systems. Within the peasant sphere of production persons are
united directly through their own personal bonds, which encompass
a common kinship, neighborhood, and culture. Work relationships
are the dimension of these personal bonds that channels labor, payment,
and job control. As Marx writes in his chapter on the fetishism
of commodities: "Personal dependence here characterizes the
social relations of production ... for the very reason that personal
dependence forms the ground-work of society, there is no necessity
for labour and its products to assume a fantastic form different from
their reality." In contrast to the reified form that labor acquires as a
commodity in matured market conditions, "the social relations between
individuals in the performance of their labour, appear at all
events as their own mutual personal relations, and are not disguised
under the shape of social relations between the products of labour"
(1967, 1177). The labor contracts between peons and peasant employers
express personal relations, not market relations, and are subject
to agreed changes according to codetermining life histories,
household ties, personal problems, and fluctuations in physical conditions
of the work situation. Peasant employers dare not press their
hired labor too hard. Peons are usually paid on a daily or a contract
basis, rarely by piecework rates, and punctuality and discipline are
not the concerns that they are on the plantations. There, in sharp
contrast, the relationship is felt as impersonal and oppressive. The
workers are victimized by the foremen, fined or laid off if late, and
subjected to sudden drops in pay scales, over which they have no
control. Often, the workers are nameless or exist merely as numbers
on pay packets, and it is not unusual for them to give a false name as
an insurance against retribution. Even though they may make more
money, the workers constantly say that they are being cheated; yet,
they never say this about peasant work. Above all, agribusiness
work is considered humiliating and muy obligatoiio (very obligatory),
a perception that derives from the contrasting experiences of
the two situations, peasant and proletarian.