The Object of Labor: Commodification in Socialist Hungary

by Martha Lampland

Did socialist policies leave the economies of Eastern Europe unprepared for current privatization efforts? Under communist rule, were rural villages truly left untouched by capitalism? In this historical ethnography of rural Hungary, Martha Lampland argues not only that the transition to capitalism was well under way by the 1930s, but that socialist policies themselves played a crucial role in the development of capitalism by transforming conceptions of time, money, and labor.

Exploring the effects of social change thrust upon communities against their will, Lampland examines the history of agrarian labor in Hungary from World War I to the early 1980s. She shows that rural workers had long been subject to strict state policies similar to those imposed by collectivization. Since the values of privatization and individualism associated with capitalism characterized rural Hungarian life both prior to and throughout the socialist period, capitalist ideologies of work and morality survived unscathed in the private economic practices of rural society. Lampland also shows how labor practices under socialism prepared the workforce for capitalism. By drawing villagers into factories and collective farms, for example, the socialist state forced farmers to work within tightly controlled time limits and to calculate their efforts in monetary terms. Indeed, this control and commodification of rural labor under socialism was essential to the transformation to capitalism.

410 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1995

Reviews

[风花 · Rating 5 out of 5]

这本书是上课时Amy推荐的，我发现我写论文可以用上，本来只是抱着应付论文的想法来读的，没想到读了之后发现作者写的是真不错，是一本作的很细致的匈牙利民族志。作者在80年代的社会主义匈牙利做田野，田野的结果很有意思：那些被视为资本主义人格的“功利主义”与“个人主义”，在匈牙利居然是社会主义实践的产物。甚至你可以在作者的叙述中读到很多和中国非常类似的历史动态：人们虽然在集体农场工作，但心却在自留地，甚至会用上班的时间（早退或缺席）来干自己的私事；贪腐、特权与贿赂依然是社会主义的润滑剂，甚至作者翻译匈牙利语成英文就是“走后门”；在和邓小平主义（用经济发展换政治冷漠）类似的卡达尔主义下，人们对政治的态度也让我这个中国人熟悉，“我父亲在我们小时候就告诉我们，绝不要掺和政治，因为我们的命运就是一辈子辛苦工作（P172）。” 似乎匈牙利的例子证明了毛发动文革的合理性，“修正主义腐蚀灵魂”。但是结果却很遗憾，在中国老百姓完全没享受到修正主义生活好处的情况下，却变得比匈牙利的人们更加修正主义，更功力，更“原子般的个人主义”。