"Rural republicans" are usually just exurbanite middle class people who want to be able to have dirt bikes and ATVs, or extremely reactionary land-owning farmers.
Then we need to focus on the rural proletariat, which is larger than propertied class and still growing quickly as more farmers, landlords, small business owners, etc. are proletarianized. This class naturally includes latino migrant workers nationwide, african americans of the rural south, chicanos in the southwest, native americans nationwide, etc. but also entails an insane amount of hyperexploited or just straight up unemployed conservative white people.
The kulaks you describe are an extremely vocal minority that continue to shrink, though i do agree that they are quite hopeless in general because of their material interests. An increasing majority of rural whites dont have a stake in the system anymore as far as i can tell: the American dream of a shitton of ATVs and F150s is dead for the vast swathes of people living in meth and opioid stricken regions that were created by Capital flight and deindustrialization.
The material conditions are ripening, and idk of culture war garbage is going to be enough to keep these people content forever. Capitalism has uprooted all productive economic activity from these areas: it has put all the farmland in the hands of monsanto and ConAgra and essentially recreated tentant farming, it has sacraficed small town businesses to walmart and dollar general, it shut down the car plants and coal mines and sent those jobs to disparate regions or even other countries where workers can be exploited even more easily, it has put all of the real estate in the hands of a couple of local wealthy landlords as well as the monopoly banks and property corporations based in the liberal metropoles. The infrastructure is crumbling and the people are not given anywhere near the amount of social services necessary to improves their qualities of life.
Rural people just need to be shown how hard they have been screwed. They must be made aware that the "mexican/chinese who took er jobs" is being screwed over just as hard by the capitalist that sent these jobs away.
I agree with a lot of what you say. I think it’s largely dependent on region from what I’ve seen. Depending on the dominant type of agriculture in an area, there may be more or less actual hired labor in farms. Some places are almost exclusively mechanized farming where it’s only farmer+family required as labor and there’s little wage labor taking place. Also the sort of “rural area as exurb” phenomena is definitely a product of proximity to the nearest large city and good old American sprawl.
Definitely relates to one of my discourse pet peeves of “working class is when you drive a truck.”
You bring up a very good point about many U.S farms being industrialized to such a degree that little hired labor is necessary, a situation i often forget is relevant because I am from one of the larges swathes of Southeast that features heavy exploitation of Latino migrant workers because the type/intensity of agriculture and crop types in the region. In addition, the black belt is very closeby and is known for being essentially the only rural part of the nation populated predominantly by African Americans because it was the historic center of the plantation economy 100s of years, before transitioning to a long period of sharecropping and prison labor slavery.
I bring up these 2 economic/demographic trends of the region i am from because they were the reason i incorrectly extrapolated these trends to the U.S as a whole, even though in reality there are large swathes of the nation dominated by family-scale petty bougiouse crop production. This type of crop production does indeed dominate in the midwestern grain belts and other regions, in contrast to the conditions i mentioned in the South as well as the similar intensive produce production in California's centeal valley that is also dependant on migrant exploitation (as a counterpoint though, the grain belt does have a large amount of rural livestock slaughter facilities and deindustrialized rust belt towns with the accompanying swathes of hyperexploited rural proletarians and a reserve labor army).
So you are correct, there is a signifigant variety of material conditions in rural America that necessitates different policies in differing regions. The good news is that I believe the petty-bougiouse farming class has more to gain from revolution than not: many other socialist projects have shown that the association of these producers into collectives can allow small farmers to form the necessary scale economic cooperation and organization to contend with the large scale agrocorps that prey on them; they stand to benefit from socialist price stabilization; they will benefit from the socialization of the banks and real estate conglomerates that prey on them; they will benefit from state provided low-interest loans and direct material aid for production.
I believe these people can be reached because their economic interests ultimately conflict with the path capitalism has paved for American society. Our enemies till the very end though will be the "true kulaks" whose economic interests are dependant on the hyperexploitation of migrant workers and other rural proletarians. In addition to them, the various swathes of exurban labor aristocrat/non-farmer petty bougiouse F150 collectors that you mention do generally have material interest in contradiction to the construction of socialism, as well as being among the most entrenched in the reactionary culture war garbage, though i will have to hold out and see how the ongoing process of proletarianization affects them.
And spot fucking on: "working class is when you drive a truck" is the exact sentiment i was trying to caution against in my 1st comment. In conclusion, your analysis is very good and i agree.
"Rural republicans" are usually just exurbanite middle class people who want to be able to have dirt bikes and ATVs, or extremely reactionary land-owning farmers.
Then we need to focus on the rural proletariat, which is larger than propertied class and still growing quickly as more farmers, landlords, small business owners, etc. are proletarianized. This class naturally includes latino migrant workers nationwide, african americans of the rural south, chicanos in the southwest, native americans nationwide, etc. but also entails an insane amount of hyperexploited or just straight up unemployed conservative white people.
The kulaks you describe are an extremely vocal minority that continue to shrink, though i do agree that they are quite hopeless in general because of their material interests. An increasing majority of rural whites dont have a stake in the system anymore as far as i can tell: the American dream of a shitton of ATVs and F150s is dead for the vast swathes of people living in meth and opioid stricken regions that were created by Capital flight and deindustrialization.
The material conditions are ripening, and idk of culture war garbage is going to be enough to keep these people content forever. Capitalism has uprooted all productive economic activity from these areas: it has put all the farmland in the hands of monsanto and ConAgra and essentially recreated tentant farming, it has sacraficed small town businesses to walmart and dollar general, it shut down the car plants and coal mines and sent those jobs to disparate regions or even other countries where workers can be exploited even more easily, it has put all of the real estate in the hands of a couple of local wealthy landlords as well as the monopoly banks and property corporations based in the liberal metropoles. The infrastructure is crumbling and the people are not given anywhere near the amount of social services necessary to improves their qualities of life.
Rural people just need to be shown how hard they have been screwed. They must be made aware that the "mexican/chinese who took er jobs" is being screwed over just as hard by the capitalist that sent these jobs away.
I agree with a lot of what you say. I think it’s largely dependent on region from what I’ve seen. Depending on the dominant type of agriculture in an area, there may be more or less actual hired labor in farms. Some places are almost exclusively mechanized farming where it’s only farmer+family required as labor and there’s little wage labor taking place. Also the sort of “rural area as exurb” phenomena is definitely a product of proximity to the nearest large city and good old American sprawl.
Definitely relates to one of my discourse pet peeves of “working class is when you drive a truck.”
You bring up a very good point about many U.S farms being industrialized to such a degree that little hired labor is necessary, a situation i often forget is relevant because I am from one of the larges swathes of Southeast that features heavy exploitation of Latino migrant workers because the type/intensity of agriculture and crop types in the region. In addition, the black belt is very closeby and is known for being essentially the only rural part of the nation populated predominantly by African Americans because it was the historic center of the plantation economy 100s of years, before transitioning to a long period of sharecropping and prison labor slavery.
I bring up these 2 economic/demographic trends of the region i am from because they were the reason i incorrectly extrapolated these trends to the U.S as a whole, even though in reality there are large swathes of the nation dominated by family-scale petty bougiouse crop production. This type of crop production does indeed dominate in the midwestern grain belts and other regions, in contrast to the conditions i mentioned in the South as well as the similar intensive produce production in California's centeal valley that is also dependant on migrant exploitation (as a counterpoint though, the grain belt does have a large amount of rural livestock slaughter facilities and deindustrialized rust belt towns with the accompanying swathes of hyperexploited rural proletarians and a reserve labor army).
So you are correct, there is a signifigant variety of material conditions in rural America that necessitates different policies in differing regions. The good news is that I believe the petty-bougiouse farming class has more to gain from revolution than not: many other socialist projects have shown that the association of these producers into collectives can allow small farmers to form the necessary scale economic cooperation and organization to contend with the large scale agrocorps that prey on them; they stand to benefit from socialist price stabilization; they will benefit from the socialization of the banks and real estate conglomerates that prey on them; they will benefit from state provided low-interest loans and direct material aid for production.
I believe these people can be reached because their economic interests ultimately conflict with the path capitalism has paved for American society. Our enemies till the very end though will be the "true kulaks" whose economic interests are dependant on the hyperexploitation of migrant workers and other rural proletarians. In addition to them, the various swathes of exurban labor aristocrat/non-farmer petty bougiouse F150 collectors that you mention do generally have material interest in contradiction to the construction of socialism, as well as being among the most entrenched in the reactionary culture war garbage, though i will have to hold out and see how the ongoing process of proletarianization affects them.
And spot fucking on: "working class is when you drive a truck" is the exact sentiment i was trying to caution against in my 1st comment. In conclusion, your analysis is very good and i agree.