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to other, more pressing, work. Their unanimity helped to shield them against the possibility that the farmer would never invite them back to thresh in subsequent seasons. Neither of the two farmers attempted to hire other villagers fur the work, as they knew none would come. 34 One (Zaharuddin) thought of recruiting outsiders from his in-laws' village but quickly thought better of it when he learned they could not come fur three days, during which he would lose most of his already cut crop to the moisture. The threshers had thus seized a rather unique opportunity to press their claims. They and the reapers, however, continued to operate with circumspection, avoiding an open confrontation and strikes whenever possible, since they knew that their future earnings depended on retaining a measure of goodwill between them and their employers. Within these decorous limits they nevertheless carried on a struggle to protect their interests as wage earners. 35

Imposed Mutuality

It would be apparent that even the modest fOrms of resistance mounted in Sedaka depend for their effect upon a certain degree of mutuality among the poor. That is, the first, and minimal, requirement of class solidarity is a negative one: that the poor at least refrain from undercutting one another and thereby further magnifying the considerable economic power of their employers and landlords. "Otherwise," as Marx notes, "they are on hostile terms with each other as competitors" 36-surviving at one another's expense. The mutuality that exists can be seen in the refusal of other share groups or threshers to act as strikebreakers in the village. It exists, as we shall see, in the vital realm of tenancy, where those seeking land are unwilling to undercut their own neighbors. No extravagant claims can be made fur this sanctioned self-restraint, inasmuch as it operates only within the confines of the village itself, and even in this context its operation is narrowly circumscribed. 37 It does, however, prevent the most

34. In this context, it is notable that there is only one man in the village, the "adopted" son ofHaji Salim, Abdul Rahim, who could be considered a "tied" laborer working almost exclusively fur one wealthy man. His position is regarded with disdain by other poor villagers, who call him a "slave" (hamba), in part because he must accept whatever terms his employer imposes.

35. There is some indication that the threshers were less exacting when they were dealing with a relatively poor farmer who enjoyed a reputation as a good man and more exacting when they were dealing with the rich and stingy.

36. Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, trans. Jack Cohen, with an Introduction by E. J. Hobsbawm (London: London & Wishart, 1964), 133.

37. Thus, fur example, while a share group will not agree to replace its "striking" colleagues, it will accept work the fOllowing season from a large farmer who wishes to hire a new group to replace those who gave him trouble the previous season.

262 • BEYOND THE WAR OF WORDS

damaging excesses of competition between the poor fur the few opportunities available. 38

Such minimal solidarity depends, here as elsewhere, not just on a seemly regard fur one's fellows, but on the sanctions that the poor can bring to bear to keep one another in line. Since the temptation to break ranks is always alluring to members of a class that has chronic difficulty making ends meet, these sanctions must be powerful enough to prevent an ever immanent Hobbesian struggle among the poor. The modest level of restraint that has been achieved makes ample use of social sanctions such as gossip, character assassination, and public shunning. There is no surer way for poor men or women to call scorn upon themselves than to work at a lower wage than the prevailing rate or to take a job that "belongs" by custom to others. Nor is it merely a question of reputation, for the offender will find that he or she is shunned in labor exchange (derau), not included in share groups, not told about possibilities of finding work, denied the petty jobs that the poor can occasionally offer, and not invited to join "rotating credit associations" (kut) in their neighborhood. Each of these material sanctions, taken separately, is fairly trivial, but collectively they represent a potential loss of some magnitude. Nor is the threat of violence entirely absent from these sanctions, as we shall see. Thus, the poor man who is tempted to break ranks must measure very carefully his short-term gain against the losses his angry neighbors may be able to impose. By their opinion and by their sanctions, the poor have erected a set of customary prohibitions that symbolize the acceptable limits of self-seeking.

These limits are best illustrated by examining the values that apply to the never-ending search fur land by would-be tenants. Since access to land is so vital to the well-being of the poor, they are under constant temptation to pry land away from other poor families by agreeing to a higher rent. And yet, the sanctions against behaving in this way are such that it happens very rarely. I often had occasion to ask poorer villagers why there were not more attempts to bid away land from local tenants by offering more for the privilege. Their replies are illuminating in their uniformity. They make clear that to do so would be an offense against another tenant. Thus, Yaakub said that such attempts are rare

38. What prevails in Sedaka is a variant of what Alier has called "union" in Southern Spain. As he describes it, "Labourers use the word union when trying to explain the existence of norms which make obligatory--or at least commendableways of behaving which aim at maintaining or Increasing wages, or at reducing unemployment. These ways of behaving are, on many occasions opposed to the individual workers interest, and they may even entail some risk or sacrifice." While such norms are occasionally violated, they appear to work best in small villages. Thus a laborer told Alier, "It is very rare to work fur less than the prevailing wage, in this village, because it is small arid people know each other. They do not do it; they would be badly looked upon." Alier, Labourers and Landowners in Southern Spain,

122, 136.

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because they would go against local "social opinion" (pandang masyarakat). Karim, who is always looking fur land to rent, said that he would not try to bid away land, since he would feel "embarrassed befOre his friend(s)" (malu sama kawan). "In our society (masyarakat kita), you can't do that," he added. Sukur and Jamil each used the identical phrase in explaining why such behavior was contemptible: "You can't cut (potong) your friends." When Hamzah explained why it was not done, he fOcused on his sense of the decorum that should prevail among the poor: "Our friends wouldn't agree to it; it wouldn't be seemly (tak elok) to scramble (berebut) like that." Even wealthier villagers recognize the fOrce of these norms and are wary of breaking them. Amin thus noted that a landlord who promoted such a bidding war or a poor man who tried to displace another tenant in this way would "not be respected (tak hormati). We are all friends; we are one village; he would feel guilty (hati-nya tak ada baik)."

There are intimations by some villagers that the sanctions that restmin such self-seeeking may go well beyond the matters of shame, reputation, and customary rules. Sarnad made it clear that any tenant who lost his land in this fashion would be "very angry and might do anything." Mat "halus" was a bit less cryptic when speaking of the offended tenant: "You can't do that, he would be angry, he would look fur his machete (cari golok)."

The comments ofRokiah and Samat are especially noteworthy in this respect, not because they add very much to what has already been reported, but because they provide the one unambiguous case in which the injunction against competition among tenants was broken. Samat explained that it was rare fur a poor man to try to outbid the current tenant because, if he did, "he would be accursed (jahanam) as far as we were concerned: you and I are finished [we would say}." Rokiah's opinion was just as fOrceful: "Someone who steals land like that would be despised (dengki)." As it happens, Rokiah has had a chance to act on her convictions. Until 1975, both Rokiah and Samat rented adjacent paddy fields from the same outside landlord: 4 relong were rented to Rokiah and a single relong to Samat. On the strength of the fact that his mother-in-law had once owned all this land, Samat went to see the landlord befOre the 1975 off season began and, by offering M$20 more in rent, persuaded him to tmnsfer an additional relong from Rokiah to him. Since that day, no one in Rokiah's family has spoken to anyone in Samat's family or to his father, Tok Mahmud. It goes without saying that, although she is known to favor PAS, neither she nor anyone in her family has set fuot in Samat's small store, which is a recognized PAS gathering place. In fact, some villagers claim, although Rokiah denies it, that she has been responsible fur an infOrmal boycott ofSamat's store by others, which may explain why it was on the verge of failure during my stay. 39 When Rokiah's daughter was married in 1980, Samat and Tok Mahmud told me that they were

39. The shop finally failed and was closed the year after I left, when Samat could no longer get supplies on credit, because of his outstanding debts.

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the only two families in the village who had not been invited. Rokiah claimed that she had, in fact, invited them but that they were too embarrassed to put in an appearance. One sure way of finding out whether a given norm exists is to observe what happens when it is violated. In this case, the episode involving Rokiah and Samat is the exception that proves the rule. 40

To return to the rule fur a moment, it should be made explicit that it does not prevent some fOrms of competition between tenants. Thus, if a landlord wants to raise the rent paid by his customary tenant to a point where the tenant is unwilling to continue, it is then permissible fur others to ask fur it under the new terms. It is also permissible-but frowned upon-fur a would-be tenant to approach a landlord fur land if the tenant he might displace is neither a fellow villager nor a relative. Once again, as with the boycott of the combines, the restrictions of mutuality break down outside the community, and their effect is partly undone by extra-village competition. What is not countenanced within the village, however, is fur a poor man to take the initiative and attempt to "steal" a tenancy by proposing a higher rent. 41

What practical effect does the restraint the poor impose upon one another have? To the extent that the market fur tenancies is still a rather localized affair, it is likely, along with kinship tenure, to impede slightly the landlord's efforts to extract the maximum possible rent. A good many agroeconomic studies of the Muda region have, in fact, remarked that rent levels in general, even fur non-kinship tenancies, are somewhat lower than a purely economic analysis would predict. The difference, while it is not large, is at least in part attributable to the small degree of local mutuality the poor have managed to create. When it

40. The rule in question is one of a larger category of rules that dominated classes typically develop to limit their exploitation. As Barrington Moore has noted, "A challenge to the moral authority of precedent, to accustomed ways of behaving that subordinates have created to protect their own interests, vis-a-vis superiors as well as the integrity of their own social group, will generally produce a reaction of moral outrage. (That is· also true when the challenge comes from a member of the subordinate group itself, as in the case of the worker who is a rate-buster and exceeds informally set norms of output)." Injustice, 30-31. Samac is, in this case, the agrarian equivalent of a "rate-buster" who has breached one of those petty but vital rules the poor have fashioned to afford themselves some protection.

41. The episode related in the previous chapter in which Tok Mah switched the tenancy for 3 relong from Lebai Hussein and his son Taha to Pak Yah is an ambiguous one. It appears that Pak Yah approached Tok Mah for the land only after she had said that Lebai Hussein no longer wanted to rent it at her proposed new rent. Lebai Hussein and Taha made it clear that they did not hold Pak Yah at fault but rather their landlady, who chose to interpret their initial grumbling over the new rent as an outright refusal. The norm is every bit as strong as the norm that tenants should not try to undercut one another, and it is the former, not the latter, that was apparently violated in this instance.