• kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      Oh yeah I mean the large landowners can get fucked. People that do their own farming are fine, a sweeping generalization here isn’t the best, there wasn’t say, 100% of kulaks doing terrorism like cops are.

        • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          2 months ago

          peasants are people who toil a land they do not own and must give up all their crops to a singular person or entity (who owns the land they work on) for little to no payment. peasants are also forced to be tied to a specific plot of land due to geography or by social contract. very, very few american farmers or farm workers that do work fall into this category. there are a number of poor american farmers that could be described as tenant farmers (they rent the land e.g. via mortgage to a bank and are able to sell their produce). a large group of farmers own their own land and do their own work. some own their own land and do a majority of their own work but pay people to do the hardest work. and then there are the worst offenders, where they own a ranch and sit on the porch watching all of their indentured laborers from mexico toil in the fields like they are southern gentry lording over their slaves. they then have the gall to act like they are real farmers, listen to country music, wear overalls, and ride in giant tanks called ‘pickup trucks’ that are spotless and have never seen real work.

          then there are the corporations that do the ranch thing which frankly might be preferable to a small business fascist farmer. the closest one can get to a peasant in america is probably one of these no-visa campesinos from mexico working in the fields.

    • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      especially with leftists conflating farmworkers and farmers

      Yeah for real, how can any leftist not understand the difference? How can anyone here actually have sympathy for farmers?

      • D61 [any]@hexbear.net
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        2 months ago

        Not using the correct words maybe, landlord or business owner, would clear things up.

        You say “farmer” and somebody is imagining a dude in coveralls riding a tractor around a field for funsies. Not porky-happy

        • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]@hexbear.net
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          2 months ago

          A big part of it is really that this whole image of the humble, hard-workin’ independent farmer has been cultivated in order to obfuscate the actual nature of modern farming.

          • D61 [any]@hexbear.net
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            2 months ago

            “Im a plumber!”, says the guy who owns a plumbing business but hasn’t touched a pipewrench in 20 years.

      • Dolores [love/loves]@hexbear.net
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        2 months ago

        farmer the word does not concretely indicate a class position though, simply saying ‘farmer’ and expecting someone to infer the geographic and economic context making the statement about a western farm owner instead of a tenant farmer or smallholder will obviously get people twisted