André Béteille and Alexis de
Tocqueville
ALAN
MACFARLANE
[From Institutions and Inequalities; Essays in
Honour of André Béteille (Oxford Univ. Press, Delhi, 1999), eds.
Ramachandra Guha and Jonathan P.Parry]
p.284
There is an old Chinese saying that it is
unlikely to be a fish that
discovered water or a bird that discovered air.
Most of us live in a
world where we take our culture as 'natural', and
seldom more so
than in relation to the ideology and actual
distribution of rank and power.
Occasionally, however, a dramatic change or set
of contrasts leads one or
more thinkers to question these basic and largely
unquestioned assumptions.
One famous occasion was in the eighteenth-century
Enlightenment when,
for example in the work of John Millar, Adam
Ferguson and Jean Jacques
Rousseau and others a systematic analysis of
equality and inequality was
undertaken.
Another
formidable attempt to understand equality and inequality was
made by Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-58). There
were a number of conditions
which seem to have played an important part in
directing Tocqueville's
attention to the question of equality and which
gave his analysis an unusual
depth. First there was his family background. An
aristocratic pedigree
contrasted with an upbringing within a
post-Revolutionary France formally
dedicated to equality and the abolition of
privileged ranks. Then there were
his travels from a land so recently hierarchical
to the most dramatically free
and equal civilization in the world, America, as
well as to England. Finally
there were the revolutionary changes in France
itself, as an inegalitarian system
tried to adapt to the new ideology of equality.
All this made equality his
obsession and his life's work was concerned with
trying to reconcile liberty
and equality. He was a man divided between two
worlds, caught in an endless
struggle between his head and his heart. As he
put it in a discarded note,
there were standing against each other 'Mon
Instinct, Mes Opinions'. 'I have
an intellectual taste for democratic
institutions, but I am an aristocrat by
instinct . . .' (Drescher 1964: 15). Out of this
clash emerged his great works
on Democracy in America and the Ancien Regime.
It is
attractive to see Andre Beteille as someone in a similar position,
reflecting deeply on the essence of equality and
inequality partly because of
285
his personal circumstances, partly through the
changing and contrasting world
he experienced. With his French father and Indian
mother, Beteille is an heir
to diverse philosophies and traditions. I As an
academic who never permanently
left India, yet frequently spent periods in
Europe and America, he is deeply
aware of the contrasts of 'East' and 'West'. As
someone who participated in
the rapid changes in India over the period since
Independence, he could see
the battle of ideologies based on inequality and
equality on his own doorstep.
It is thus no surprise to find that his lifelong
obsession has been with equality
and inequality. His Ph.D. thesis was published
under the title of Caste, Class
and Power; Changing Patterns of
Stratification in a Tanjore Village (1965)
and was soon followed by his influential edited
set of readings
on Social Inequality (1969), and then by Inequality
among Men (1977) and The Idea
of Natural Inequality and Other Essays (1983).
There
is not merely a resemblance between these two thinkers. There is
clearly a very great amount of continuity. In
some ways Beteille can be seen
as one of the heirs of Tocqueville, as someone
who has applied Tocqueville's
earlier insights and broadened and updated his
analysis. His debt and the
way in which his work complements Tocqueville's
can be seen if we consider
first some of his explicit comments on
Tocqueville's writings and the way in
which they provide a framework for his own comparative
analysis.
THE FIRST DISTINCTION: HIERARCHICAL AND
EGALITARIAN SYSTEMS
As a first step, Beteille follows Tocqueville in
proposing a simple binary
model in space and time which suggests that until
the eighteenth century all
the world was based on the premise of natural
inequality, but after that western
Europe and America moved rapidly to the premise
of natural equality, leaving
India and much of Asia to 'catch up' later. It
can also be shown in certain
parts of Beteille's earlier work. Let us briefly
examine this use of Tocqueville's
ideas and the way Beteille proposes an initial
binary opposition between two
systems of equality. Beteille wrote that
For Tocqueville there were
two kinds of societies, aristocratic society with its fixed
and stable hierarchy of
estates or castes, and democratic society which allowed or
even encouraged the free
movement of individuals across its classes. Aristocratic
societies prevailed in Europe
prior to the nineteenth century; and America in the
first half of that century
was the best example of democratic society. (1983: 39)
Beteille reiterates the contrast many times.
The first feature that
strikes us is that the major civilisations of the past were all
hierarchical by design,
although the logic of the hierarchy was not everywhere the
same. The design was most
elaborately and consistently worked out in the case of
traditional India, although
it was very much in evidence in medieval Europe and also
in China from the time of
Confucius onwards. (1977: 25)
286
Thus until the eighteenth century, all the world
was 'hierarchical'.
It is not as if the principle
of hierarchy enjoyed legitimacy only in traditional Indian
society; in this matter India
was not unique among the civilisations of the past. In pre-
industrial Europe also
society was not only divided into unequal ranks., orders or
estates, but these divisions
were broadly accepted in principle. There also the social
hierarchy was invested with a
measure of unity and coherence so that what existed
was considered to be by and
large right, proper and desirable. (Ibid.: 150)
Beteille shows how this was elaborated in
relation to the legal structure.
As is well known, feudal
society in Europe was divided into estates. This division did
not just exist as a fact of
experience, it was supported by legal sanctions. The same
laws did not apply to all,
and there were separate courts to deal with cases relating to
persons of different estates;
for a person of a superior estate to be tried in an inferior
court would have been a
violation of honour. (Ibid.: 43)
It was enshrined in the value system.
The civilizations of Europe
and Asia were in pre-modern times marked by the
prominence of ranked social
divisions and by the attention paid to rank in the various
spheres of life. The
attention to rank was carried over into legal rules and religious
beliefs which are in such
societies closely intertwined. Moreover, as Tocqueville points
out, different standards of
right conduct and different conceptions of honour, virtue
and even morality are
associated with the different ranks or orders into which society
is divided. (1983: 56-7)
According to Beteille, all this changed in the
West somewhere between the
mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. The timing
of this revolutionary
change also gives us a clue as to the causes of
the dramatic shift.
Many things contributed to
the kinds of change which Tocqueville and others
witnessed and foresaw.
Foremost among these were the Industrial Revolution and
the French Revolution which
both began in the second half of the eighteenth century.
They set about in a hundred
different ways to destroy the material as well as the
moral foundations of the
traditional social order with its old hierarchies and myths.
In Europe people were not
only being imbued with new aspirations, but new
opportunities were being
created by and for them on an unprecedented scale.
(1977: 147)
It is a familiar story and one which has deeply
influenced sociological thought:
the birth of the 'modem' in the West, separating
off a certain part of the
globe from the rest in the 'revolution' of the
later eighteenth century. Beteille
specifically locates the argument in
Tocqueville's work and links it to
Tocqueville's own personal position as torn
between the two worlds.
The first and in some ways
still the most outstanding contrast between the hierarchical
social order of the past and
the emerging social order with its commitment to equality
was the one made by Alexis de
Tocqueville. Tocqueville's contrast between aristocracy
287
and democracy is not confined
to two modes of political organization; it extends to
patterns of social
distinction, forms of religious experience and consciousness, and
types of aesthetic
sensibility. Although born a few years after the French Revolution,
he came from an aristocratic
family, one which had suffered by it, and he spoke of the
life and ideals of the
aristocracy with the insight of personal knowledge. On the other
hand, democracy still lay
largely in the future, although the promise of that future
infused his writing with an
astonishingly vivid quality. (1983: 74)
Or again, Beteille writes
Alexis de Tocqueville was the
first to bring out the full significance of the normative
order of the new society that
was emerging in the United States. A European, steeped
in the traditions of
aristocracy, he could not but be impressed by the pervasive influence
of the principle of equality
in every sphere of life. The idea that people should be
permanently divided into
ranks invested with unequal rights and obligations was,
according to Tocqueville,
contrary to the spirit of American society; it was of equality
and not hierarchy that custom
religion all spoke in one voice. Tocqueville
maintained further that the
spirit of equality would come to prevail over the spirit of
hierarchy, in Europe , and in
the world as a whole. (1977: 151)
THE SECOND DISTINCTION: HARMONIC AND
DISHARMONIC SYSTEMS
Beteille is not content to stop here and is again
guided by Tocqueville to
search for a more complex formulation. He argues
that dichotomized thinking,
except in terms of 'ideal types' is dangerously
misleading. Thus he writes,
I find it false to represent
the opposition between equality and inequality as a contrast
between two societies in two
different parts of the world. On the contrary, each society
is an arena within which the
two interplay, and if we fail to examine this interplay
within societies, the
comparisons we make between societies will be shallow and
misleading. (1983: 38)
He praises Tocqueville himself for breaking Out
of just such dichotomized
thinking.
The attraction of
Tocqueville's work lies in his refusal to be a prisoner of his own
dichotomy. While he dwells at
great length on the opposite natures of aristocratic and -
democratic societies, he
leaves room for considering the contradictions "-]thin each
type of society. (ibid.: 41)
Indeed some of Beteille's best insights come out
of his recognition of the
contradictions within systems.
This
uneasiness at the over-simple dichotomizing of' Past: Present, and
West: Rest is shown in certain passages where
Beteille questions some of his
own earlier assumptions about the 'hierarchical'
nature of 'the West' before
the eighteenth century. He writes that 'The more
closely one examines the
288
old order in the West the less plausible the
argument appears that it knew
nothing of equality as a value' (ibid.: 43).
',"his is a summary of an earlier
passage where he points to one contradiction,
also noted by Tocqueville
It is clear that equality as
an ideal and a value was never wholly alien to Western
civilization even when its
organization \\/as most elaborately hierarchical. No institution
within that civilization was
more hierarchical than the Catholic church, and indeed
the concept of hierarchy 1,
in its meaning a Christian concept. Tocqueville
recognized and noted this-,
at the same time he did not fall to point out that 'Christianity,
which has declared that all
men are equal in the sight of God, will not refuse to
acknowledge that all citizens
are equal in the eye of the law.' It Is as if a value and an
ideal that had lain dormant
under a hierarchical organization came into its own when
external conditions favoured
its awakening, and then invested these external conditions
with a new significance.
(ibid.: 41-2)
Thus Beteille picks up Tocqueville's idea that
all systems are mixed: that
I pure' hierarchy or equality only exists as an
ideal type, and that in reality
any society at any point in time will be the
result of a dynamic and moving
equilibrium between incompatible and ever-varying
forces. Systems are
neither static nor consistent and Beteille has
often pointed this out in relation
to the Indian past.
In
trying to proceed beyond unsatisfactory dichotomies, Beteille has
proposed a distinction between two kinds of
social system which he calls
'harmonic' and 'disharmonic' He defines a
'harmonic' system as follows: it is
one in which there is
consistency between the normative order and the existential
order: society is divided
into groups which are placed high and low, and the divisions
and their ordering are
considered as right, proper and desirable or as a part of the
natural scheme of things.
(ibid.: 54)
He then describes India as a good example of such
a system; there is a premise
and a practice of inequality, there is no
fundamental contradiction (ibid.: 57-
64).
A
second form of 'harmonic' system can be envisaged 'in which there is
equality in both principle and practice'.
Beteille does not give any worked
examples of such a harmonic system, though he
does consider the question
generally (1977: ch. 7). The most obvious
examples are some of the very
simplest hunter - gatherer bands (Woodburn 1982),
but once mankind
established settled agrarian civilizations it is
difficult to see examples. We
know too much to believe that communism, where
all are in theory equal but
some more equal than others, has produced durable
instances. 'America' as
encountered by Tocqueville came closer than most
instances, for a time, to
this condition, as Tocqueville himself noted. In
America Tocqueville found a
land which had explicitly enthroned the premise
of equality, rather than of
inequality. It made it a central tenet that man
was born free and equal. This
was still a peculiar way of looking at things and
Tocqueville consequently
289
noted that 'No novelty in the United States
struck me more vividly during
my stay there than the equality of conditions'
(Tocqueville 1968a: 1, 5).
Equality, or democracy as he often called it,
became the key to understanding
America. 'So the more I studied American society,
the more clearly I saw
equality of conditions as the creative element
from which each particular
fact derived, and all my observations constantly returned to this nodal point'
(ibid.). There had been some early attempts to
take inequality over from the
Old World, but they had failed. 'Laws were made
there to establish the
hierarchy of ranks, but it was soon seen that the
soil of America absolutely
rejected a territorial aristocracy' (ibid: 1,
37).
Beteille
does not stop here, however, for he suggests a further distinction,
that is the idea of 'disharmonic' systems which
'by contrast show[s] a lack
of consistency between the existential and the
normative orders'. One form
is where 'the norm of equality is contradicted by
the persuasive existence of
inequality'. This seems to characterize much of
modern 'western' civilization,
including America in its later history, where
'Despite the idealization of
equality, the class structure continues to be an
important part of Western
social reality, some would say its most important
part' (1983: 76). Beteille
quotes Raymond Aron to the effect that 'Modem
industrial societies are both
egalitarian in aspiration and hierarchical in
organization' and adds the comment
that 'Modem societies are in this sense
disharmonic: there is in them a lack of
consistency between the normative and the
existential order' (1977: 15 1). The
clash between ideology and practice, and even
within the ideology, is shown
even more clearly when the 'West' dominated much
of Asia and elsewhere.
Those who trace the
historical conditions of the emergence of homo equalis in the West
generally overlook the
adventures of the same homo equalis abroad. As if the destruction
of aboriginal society in
Australia and America, the enslavement and brutal use of millions
of Blacks, or the imposition
of the most unequal conditions between European and
natives throughout Asia took
place in another epoch or on another planet. (1983: 52-3)
This is written with feeling by someone brought
up in the shadow of the Raj.
We may
summarize the theoretical structure which Beteille has suggested
in a diagram (see Fig. 1).
A DISHARMONIC SYSTEM IN THE 'WEST'
Beteille is in many ways most interested in the
'disharmonic' case (D), where
a civilization proclaims equality but practises
inequality, for this, in essence,
is the modern situation.
The great paradox of the
modem world is that everywhere men attach themselves to
the principle of equality and
everywhere, in their own lives as well as in the lives of
others, they encounter the
presence of inequality. The more strongly they attach
themselves to the principles
or the ideology of equality the more oppressive the reality
becomes. (1977: 1)
290
INSERT FIGURE HERE
FIG. 1. Four types of
stratification
When did this contradiction emerge and what are
its deeper features? Here
Beteille can only set us on the path.
Beteille
notes at several places that within the general harmonic ancien
regime of western Europe before the French
Revolution, there seems to have
been something unusual about England which hints
at 'disharmony'. For
instance he notes that England seems to have been
different in certain respects.
Moreover, the system varied
considerably from one region to another even within
Western Europe not only in
its formal arrangement but also in its course of growth,
maturity and decay. The
contrast between France and England-the 'exceptional case
of England'-is a commonplace
of medieval European history. (1983: 65)
Or again Beteille writes that
Even between France and
England, neighbours who shared many things in common,
there were important
differences. The nobility never acquired in England the array of
privileges it enjoyed in
France, and English historians frequently point to the antiquity
of their own traditions of
equality.
He continues, however, by qualifying this remark
by noting that 'for all its
distinctiveness, England also developed a social
hierarchy, many elements of
which lasted longer there than in other West
European countries' (ibid.).
Beteille's hints of an unusually early
disharmonic system in England lead us
straight back to Tocqueville.
291
On his first visit to England in 1833 Tocqueville
wrote as follows:
But what distinguishes it
[the aristocracy of England] from all others is the ease, with
which it has opened its ranks
... with great riches, anybody could hope to enter into
the ranks of the aristocracy.
Furthermore since everybody could hope to become rich,
especially in such a
mercantile country as England, a peculiar position arose in that
their privileges, which
raised such feeling against the aristocrats of other countries,
were the thing that most
attached the English to theirs.... The English aristocracy in
feelings and prejudices
resembles all the aristocracies of the world, but it is not in the
least founded on birth, that
inaccessible thing, but on wealth that everyone can acquire,
and this one difference makes
it stand, while the others succumb either to the people
or to the King. (1968b: 43)
Thus England combined very great de facto
differences, with few de jure
privileges.
As
Tocqueville left England he summarized many of his impressions.
In England an illustrious
name is a great advantage . . . but in general one can say that
the aristocracy is founded on
wealth, a thing which may be acquired, and not on birth
which cannot. From this it
results that one can clearly see in England where real
aristocracy begins, but it is
impossible to say where it ends.
Furthermore, the real difference can be pinned
down on to one word.
The difference between
England and France in this matter turns on the examination
of a single word in each
language. 'Gentleman' and 'gentilhomme' evidently have
the same derivation, but
'gentleman' in England is applied to every well-educated
man whatever his birth, while
is France gentilhomme applies only to a noble by birth.
The meaning of these two
words of common origin has been so transformed by the
different social climates of
the two countries that today they simply cannot be
translated, at least without
recourse to a periphrasis. This grammatical observation is
more illuminating than many
long arguments. (ibid.: 51-2)
The situation partly arose from the commercial
nature of England, whose
wealth could be acquired from sources other than
land and hence a parallel
I aristocracy' constantly emerged and challenged
the older families.
In this way an aristocracy of
wealth was soon established and, as the world became
more civilized and more
opportunities of gaining wealth presented themselves, it
increased, whereas the old
aristocracy, for the same reasons, continually lost ground.
(ibid.: 104)
The consequences were status competition and
uncertainty, a constant pre-
occupation with small marks of difference and
attempts to outdo others.
Paradoxically this meant that in the middle of
the nineteenth century England
was more snobbish than France. The French wish
not to have superiors. The
English wish to have inferiors. The Frenchman
constantly raises his eyes
above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his
beneath him with
292
satisfaction' (ibid.: 60). Ranks still existed in
England, but they were confused.
'When birth alone, independent of wealth, decides
a man's class, each knows
exactly where he stands on the social ladder. He
neither seeks to rise nor
fears to fall.' But when 'an aristocracy of
wealth takes the place of one of
birth, this is no longer the case.' This is
because
As a man's social worth is
not ostensibly and permanently fixed by his birth, but
varies infinitely with his wealth.
ranks -Still exist, but it cannot be seen clearly at first
sight by whom the\, are
represented. The immediate result is an unspoken warfare
between all the citizens. One
Idea tries by a thousand dodges to infiltrate, in fact or in
appearance. among those above
them ']'he others are constantly trying to push back
these usurper.,, of their
rights. Or rather the same man plays both parts ... (1968a: Il,
731-2)
This was one of the reasons the English were so
guarded with each other:
they found it difficult, especially if they met
away from England, to know
who they were dealing with (ibid.: 11, 73 1). It
was also an explanation of why
it was so difficult to envisage a revolution in
England. De Tocqueville believed
that 'The English aristocracy can therefore never
arouse those violent hatreds
felt by the middle and lower classes against the
nobility in France where the
nobility is an exclusive caste . . .'In England,
'The English aristocracy has a
hand in everything; it is open to everyone; and
everyone who wishes to abolish
it or attack it as a body, would have a hard task
to define the object of his
onslaught' (1968b: 52). One of de Tocqueville's
greatest puzzles, taking up a
theme from Montesquieu, was why England had
become so different. (2)
De
Tocqueville suggested that out of a common European feudalism, that
is the odd mixture which arose out of a
decomposing Roman civilization and
Germanic customs, the subsequent paths of
continental Europe and England
were different. He started with the premise that
there had been very little
difference between the parts of western Europe in
the Dark Ages. The system
which emerged in about the ninth century covered
the whole of western and
central Europe (ibid.: 2). Then came the invasion
of England by de
Tocqueville's Norman ancestors. At this point,
Normandy and much of France,
as well as most of the Continent, were identical
to England. Yet this identical
system produced contrary results. By the
seventeenth century there was a
great divergence. 'Everywhere on the Continent at
the beginning of the
seventeenth century absolute monarchies stood
triumphantly on the ruins of
the feudal or oligarchic freedom of the Middle
Ages' (1968a: 1, 52-3). Yet in
England,
Shutting your eyes to the old
names and forms, you will find from the seventeenth
century the feudal-system
substantially abolished, classes which overlap, nobility of
birth set on one side,
aristocracy thrown open, wealth as the source of power, equality
before the law, office open
to all, liberty of the press, publicity of debate.... Seventeenth-
century England was already a
quite modem nation, which has merely preserved in its
heart, and as it were
embalmed, some relics of the Middle Ages. (1956: 21)
293
In these ways it diverged dramatically from what
happened elsewhere in
Europe. What then is the great difference
according to de Tocqueville?
It was far less its
Parliament, its liberty, its publicity, its jury, which in fact rendered
the England of that date so
unlike the rest of Europe than a feature still more exclusive
and more powerful. England
was the only country in which the system of caste had
been not changed but
effectively destroyed. The nobles and the middle classes in
England followed together the
same courses of business, entered the same professions,
and, what is much more
significant, intermarried. (ibid.: 89)
The fact that inequalities on the basis of birth
had been abolished, or had
never properly arisen, in England, did not mean
that there was little inequality.
Ironically, the aristocracy was flourishing in
eighteenth -century England while
it was decaying all over Europe.
This gradual impoverishment
of the nobles was seen more or less not only in France
but in all parts of the
continent where the feudal system, as in France, disappeared
without being replaced by a
new form of aristocracy. Among the German peoples, who
bordered the Rhine, this
decay was everywhere visible and much noticed. The contrary
was only met with in England.
In England the old noble families which still existed
had not only preserved, but
also had largely increased their wealth.... (ibid.: 86)
Thus one found in England, 'apparent equality,
real privileges of wealth,
greater perhaps than in any country in the world'
(1968b: 79). Of course they
proclaimed the universal rights and equality of
men. But what did these consist
of? The English have left the poor but two
rights: 'that of obeying the same
laws as the rich, and that of standing on an
equality with them if they can
obtain equal wealth' (ibid.: 78).
This
clash between a de jure situation where everyone in theory was equal,
but some definitely ended up as richer and more
powerful, was made more
difficult to bear by the loss of religious faith.
In most societies, the poor
could reconcile themselves to their position by
realizing that there was no
alternative: they were born into a fixed social
position. Or again, in many
religions their position was determined by their
activities in previous lives. It
was not their fault, a result of their
fecklessness or inability. Even Christianity
had provided the solace that even if this life
was one of poverty, there would
be recompense in eternity. The rich would find it
virtually impossible to get
through the eye of the needle into heaven. The
poor and meek would inherit
the earth, and heaven too. Yet as faith
evaporated, men and women were
faced not only with physical misery, but no
consolation prize in the after life.
Thus inequalities were particularly hard to bear
'in an epoch when our view
into another world has become dimmer, and the
miseries of this world become
more visible and seem more intolerable' (1948:
84). The English case is
relatively familiar to many of us since, to a
certain extent, it is part of the air
we breathe now, through its extension to America
and Europe over the last
three hundred years. Through de Tocqueville's
analysis, this third case, the
294
origins and spread of the major disharmonic form
which now dominates the
world, become less mysterious.
A DISHARMONIC SYSTEM IN THE 'EAST'
Beteille also considers briefly the last logical
possibility (A), that is a
'disharmonic' system in which 'people practise
equality while professing its
opposite'. Yet he excludes this category from
consideration 'as being remote
from historical experience' (, 1983: 54). In
fact, in small-scale instances, it is
probably fairly common. One variant is to be
found, for instance, in the area
where I do anthropological fieldwork in the
central Himalayas. The 'Gurungs'
were at one stage transhumant shepherds and
hunter-gatherers and, on the
whole, their ideology and practice was towards
the egalitarian end of the
continuum. During the last three hundred or more
years they have gradually
been absorbed into a hierarchical model based on
the Hindu caste system.
There is a marked tension, however, for while the
ideology is often explicitly
hierarchical, with 'Untouchable' groups, ritual
impurity and so on, in practice
the interpersonal relations and distribution of
wealth have manifested a
considerable amount of de facto equality
(Macfarlane 1976, 1993). No doubt
many similar examples could be found on the
interface between tribal and
caste societies.
Here,
however, I would like to conclude by considering a civilization which
has for at least a thousand years manifested a
notable tension or contradiction
between an ideology of inequality and a practice
of much de facto equality.
This is the puzzling case of Japan. Although the
following account is necessarily
schematized and over-simplified, it is worth
exploring briefly the one large-
scale case which seems to fit the last of
Beteille's four major ideal types.
At the ideological or cultural level of
interpersonal relations, Japan has
long been and remains today one of the most
hierarchical or inegalitarian
societies ever known. We are often told that
equal relationships are
impossible in Japan. Japan is and always has been
a 'vertical' society, where
every relationship is of an inferior to a
superior. This is built into the
language, etiquette and all of life. Chie
Nakane's work epitomizes this view.
'The relationship between two individuals of
upper and lower status is the
basis of the structural principle of Japanese
society.' 'In fact, in Japan it is
very difficult to form and maintain the sort of
voluntary association found
so often in western societies, in that it does
not have the basis or frame of
existing horizontal personal relations.' 'The
golden rule is that the junior
man should invariably carry out any order from
his immediate superior, for
this immediate link between the two men is the
source of the existence of
the junior man in the organization.' 'The core of
the Japanese family, ancient
and modern, is the parent-child relationship, not
that between husband and
wife. So the family today also reflects the
predominance of vertical
relationships' (Nakane 1973: 44, 62, 55, 133).
295
Although Nakane is the most systematic in her
analysis of the vertical nature
of Japanese society, others are in broad
agreement. Robert Bellah wrote,
The particular characteristic
of the Japanese institutional system was its strong
emphasis on the vertical axis
and relatively small reliance oil horizontal ties. That is,
the institutional structure
was held together largely through ties of loyalty between
superior and inferior. (1957:
55)
Ruth Benedict had written earlier that 'Whatever
one's age, one's position in
the hierarchy depends on whether one is male or
female. The Japanese woman
walks behind her husband and has a lower status'
(1967: 37). Takie Lebra
explains that Japanese 'siblings are also
hierarchically graded in a strikingly
elaborate system based on seniority. One is a
junior brother or a senior brother
vis-a-vis every other brother, unless the two
happen to have entered the group
at the same time' (1976: 179).
Indeed
language itself makes an -equal relationship impossible. As Paul
Bohannan noted, all Japanese verb endings must
denote relative rank (1969:
43). and hence, for example as Robert Smith,
quoting Miyoshi, observed
In such interaction between
young male equals, each speaks as though the listener
were his inferior [that is,
both use less polite speech]; between female equals, each as
though the listener were her
superior [that is, both use more polite speech]; between
male and female equals, she
speaks with [deference], he without it .... (1983: 75)
It is difficult, in one sense, to conceive of a
less egalitarian society.
Yet, in
practice, the pervasive inequality is situational; a person is not
intrinsically unequal by virtue of birth (unless
he or she happens to be a
foreigner or a member of the discriminated croup,
the burakamin). Hence,
many see Japan as one of the few truly
egalitarian societies, with little
permanent ranking, orders, castes or classes, and
with very considerable
opportunities for social mobility. This was noted
long ago by Basil Hall
Chamberlain.
Some have used the word
'caste' to denote these divisions-, but the term is inappropriate,
as there exists no impassable
barrier between the different classes. nor yet anything
approaching to Indian caste
prejudice. The feeling only resembles that to which we
are accustomed in England, if
indeed it is as strong.
Chamberlain comments, 'And how this moderation
makes for happiness!
The rich not being blatant, the poor are not
abject-, in fact, though poverty
exists, pauperism does not. A genuine spirit of
equality pervades society'
(1971: 95, 449).
The fact that Japan is at the opposite extreme
from a 'caste' society has
been echoed by anthropologists. For example, some
years ago A.L. Kroeber
wrote that 'Japan is often cited as a land of
caste', but believed that 'this
was true to perhaps the same degree as of
medieval Europe', and believed
296
that 'occupational elaboration and integration
with religion remained vague'
(Kroeber 1935). More recently, Chie Nakane. who
has also worked on the
fringes of a caste society, in Assam, writes that
the general ideology of
Japan shows itself to be 'completely~. the
opposite of the caste ideology, in
which division of labour and the interdependence
of groups are the basic
principles of social organization . ton In ,i
caste society groups are formed of
homogeneous elements. while in Japan they consist
of heterogeneous
elements' (1973: 105).
The contradiction is captured by Edwin 0. Reischauer.
'Status is
vastly important. But i of' (:lass and actual
class differences are both
extremely weak-. In essential ways, Japan today
has a very egalitarian
society-more so in fact than those of the United
States and many European
countries.' He believes that this is partly
related to the strength of the small
group. "Otherwise, groups associations, by
emphasizing discrete hierarchical
relationships and reducing lateral contacts with
groups of similar function
and status, play down class feelings as these are
known in the West.' He
concludes that 'Japanese society is rent by no
sharp cleavage. There is virtually
no great inherited wealth and very little degrading
poverty' (1988: 150, 152,
174)., It is perhaps this which makes the
Japanese themselves uncomfortable
with the label of 'vertical society'. 'There-- is
a popular, conventional theory
that Japan is a vertical society. Nothing could
be more mistaken. Japan is a
circular society.' Michiro Matsumoto himself,
visiting the land of equality
reports that 'I learned the hard way that it is
the American society that is
intrinsically vertical' (1988: 121, 126).
Japan
is thus famously a 'small group society'. Within the group there
are vertical differences, but between the groups
there is a great deal of equality.
There are no fixed and permanent strata, just
powerful internally stratified
entities. This is described by Nakane as follows:
'There is no obvious status
group formed by masters or landlords, excluding
peasants: on the contrary, a
functional group was formed by landlord and
tenant, master and servant, and
the master or superior was always one of them in
the same group' (1973:
152). This explains why, for instance, there was
no distinct aristocracy or
ruling class. As Lebra, citing Hasegawa, puts it,
'the aristocracy in Japan,
compared with its European, Chinese, and Indian
counterparts, has formed a
less distinct cultural elite, less separate from
the working mass' (1976: 83).
It is thus impossible to speak of the 'upper
class' or the 'ruling class'. (3)
Thus
what is curious about Japan is that the whole society;. is based on the
premise of situational inequality, yet de facto
there is little ranking of groups.
It teaches us that there is a strong middle
position between the two extremes
represented in the usual sociological models.
Such situational inequality see,-ns
perfectly compatible with advanced industrialism.
Thus Japan is, depending
on how one looks at it, the most egalitarian, or
the least egalitarian of societies.
At the cultural level of language, kinship,
gender and age, there is hierarchy
everywhere; no one is equal. At the level of
formal stratification in terms of
297
class, caste and wealth, there is surprisingly
great equality for most. We thus
have a system that combines two apparently
contradictory principles-
extreme inequality and extreme equality.
We can
understand the situation a little better if we look very briefly at
Japanese history. I shall do so here by using one
source alone, that is the
multi.- volume Cambridge History of Japan,
which has recently been published
(see Macfarlane 1997). Between the twelfth and
late sixteenth centuries, it
would appear that Japan was an unusually 'open'
society. It is difficult to
speak of castes, classes or even estates. Thus
Barbara Ruch writes that 'there
was as yet no particular differentiation among an
artisan, manufacturer, peddler,
merchant, or a worker engaged in providing
services, except perhaps in their
economic success or failure' (Yamamura 1990:
514). Neither in theory nor
practice was there rigidity in the large urban
and commercial sector. The
same was true among the large numbers of those
who worked on the land.
We may note, for example, the absence of slavery
in the normal sense of
the word, or even of unfree peasants. The
situation was complicated because
there were numerous different sub-groups 'based
on a complicated status
system', with each group having a different name
'indicating the group's
relative degree of freedom or subordination'. The
largest group, that is the
normal workers on the land, what Japanese
historians term 'peasants', were
relatively free. Oyama Kyohel writes that 'from
observations of the various
representative shoen [landed proprietors], it is
clear that the shoen peasants
could act fairly freely and that on occasion they
both allied with and resisted
the jito [estate manager] and shoen (Yamamura
1990: 120). Thus the same
author concludes that 'the medieval peasant was
basically a 'freeman' (jijymin)
(ibid.: 121). A 'free' peasantry of this kind is
unusual, probably only to be
found in parts of western Europe and Japan at
this early date. That it remained
free in England and Japan over the centuries that
followed is of great
importance.
As in
so many features the reforms of the early Tokugawa seemed to
change all this.' They aimed at imposing, for the
first time, a rigid system of
social stratification. The actual fact of
stratification seems at first sight to
have destroyed the openness of the medieval
period. The closure was meant
to prevent all kinds of mobility, not only
social, but occupational and
geographic. Thus, for example, Gilbert Rozman
writes that 'Peasants were
barred from entering the samurai class, and in
principle, from moving to the
cities, from switching to non-agricultural
pursuits, and from selling or using
their land as they might see fit' (Jansen 1989:
516). Yet the policy seems to
have been fairly ineffective. Donald Shively
writes that 'From the early Edo
[Tokugawa] period, the government recognized the
order of the four classes
as samurai (shi), farmer (no), craftsmen (ko) and
merchant (sho) (quoted in
Hall 1991). But 'Although Confucianists often
spoke of this class order, it
was never given a legal basis, and its
artificiality and imprecision must be
kept in mind'(Hall 1991: 708). The outward signs
of the failure to create and
298
maintain rigidity are numerous. In relation to
geographic mobility it failed;
there was massive mobility. Furthermore, there
was much movement between
occupations, with many farmers having
bi-occupations. This fluidity was
shown in externals such as dress. As Susan Hanley
observes, 'one would
expect to find that dress varied by class and
income in a highly stratified
society' yet 'what is remarkable for Tokugawa
Japan is how similar the basic
cut of the clothing was for each Thus we are told
that the 'daily wear
of men of both the samurai and merchant classes
was remarkably similar in
basic style . . . dress in fact was gradually
being standardized and class
differences minimized (Hall I 1 91)1:
69"1-3). The blending emerged as a result
of a number of factors, some of which may be
briefly mentioned.
Following
Shively, we learn that it was impossible to maintain the
supposed distinction between the two classes of
craftsmen and merchants.
'In practice, no attempt was made to distinguish
craftsmen from merchants:
both were treated as a single group' (Hall 1991:
709). Secondly, within each
supposed 'class' there were great differences in
actual wealth and hence
instability was introduced into the
classification system. We are told that
'Bushi [warrior class] included not only the
shogun and the daimyo [higher
lords] but also the humble servants of samurai.
Farmers ranged from rich
landowners and village headmen to tenants and
agricultural servants' (ibid.:
711). Thirdly, the distinctions between the
samurai and the rest were soon
blurred. For instance, while 'Intermarriage
between samurai and commoners
was considered inappropriate', in fact 'bushi
were permitted, not uncommonly,
to take commoner wives' and hence 'A kind of
cultural levelling occurred I
(ibid.: 7 11). The mechanism of adoption added to
this fluidity; many rich
commoners' children were adopted into the samurai
ranks. The alliance
between ancient blood and new wealth, which was a
distinct characteristic of
late medieval and early modern England, was also
common in Japan.
Thus
there was a growing mingling and mixing of groups as wealth
increased. The tendency of money to undermine the
supposedly separate ranks
is summarized by a number of authors and Rozman
cites Kozo Yamamura to
the effect that under the pressure of economic
necessity, class distinctions
became 'virtually nonexistent' (Jansen 1989:
531). Everything became
purchasable on the market-including rank. For
instance, as early as 1783,
'the han [lordly domains] provided the
convenience of a price list for status,
from 50 ryo for wearing a sword to 620 ryo for
full warrior standing' (ibid.:
79). This was merely regularizing what was
already in place; the possibility
of exchanging wealth for status, the hallmark of
the stratification system of
modern societies. All this helps to explain why
at the Meiji restoration the
remains of the system of separate estates
evaporated so very quickly. A
summary also captures the gap between the formal
rules and the practice. 'If
we look only at how Japanese society was supposed
to operate, we will find
a rigid class society in place throughout the
Tokugawa period.' On the other
hand, as Hanley writes, in practice. 'Japan lost
its class distinctions far more
299
quickly and are more thoroughly than England
did.' It seems very likely that 'much of the reason has to be the blurring of
class lines before the Meiji Restoration' (Hall 1991: 703-4)
SYNTHESIS
I have suggested that de Tocqueville was
Beteille's unacknowledged mentor, helping to set his intellectual agenda and
providing guidance on a number of the deepest issues. His openly acknowledged
inspiration was, however, Max Weber, who not only reinforced the need for
comparison and contrast in all social scientific research, but also encouraged
Beteille to develop 'ideal type' analysis. Beteille's ideal types of harmonic
and disharmonic are valuable because they show that while remaining 'pure' in
principle, an ideal type can contain within itself a structural contradiction
or opposition. 'Disharmonic' systems are essentially unstable; they contain a
clash of ideology and practice Of course there are even more complicated
contradictions than those discussed here, for the ideology itself, as Beteille
frequently acknowledges in relation to both 'India' and the 'West', is usually
founded on contradictions. But for the present we can limit ourselves to a
simple model. The conclusions emerging from combining de Tocqueville, Beteille
and a brief discussion of the Japanese case can be summarised in a further
diagram (see Fig.2).
INSERT FIG. 2 HERE
FIG.2. Instances of the Four Systems of Stratification
300
Of
course, none of these cases is fixed and like the famous instance
documented by Edmund Leach in Highland Burma,
they swing back and
forth along both poles over time (Leach 1964).
What is intriguing, however,
is to see in the two cases analysed more full\'
here, England and Japan.
how there are both fluctuations and continuities.
Likewise, if there is any
truth in this analysis, it helps to explain why
both Japanese and western
observers feel a mixed sense of familiarity and
difference when they
contemplate or experience each other's
civilizations. They recognize an
affinity, another disharmonic or contradictory
system, a good deal of equality
in practice. Yet they also sense a deep
difference. There is indeed a gulf and
in certain ways the two civilizations are
inversions or mirror images of
each other. The two different disharmonic systems
are both alike and unlike
at the same time.
At a
wider level, it is worth being reminded that the 'Us' and "Them'
dichotomy. which Louis Dumont among others exemplifies,
is unsatisfactory. (5)
We all experience It and nearly all of us can see
the 'Other' as a complete
reversal of ourselves. Hence to see 'India' as
part of the 'Orient', as the
reverse of ourselves is tempting, as discussion
of 'Orientalism' has shown.
The simple bifurcation of Homo Hierarchicus and
Homo Equalis, made not
only into a geographic contrast, but also an
historical one, the past being
'hierarchical' until the sudden emergence of 'modernity',
is very tempting.
Most of us stand here and now, and we see 'them',
whether in other
civilizations or past ages, as very different and
there is always enough
substance in the view to give it an initial
plausibility.
What
is rarer is to proceed to the second step, that is to see that in both
'Us' and 'Them', whether this is conceived of
geographically or temporally,
there are contradictions. It needs a special sort
of person, living in special
conditions, to do so. Here we may be able to
guess at something which unites
de Tocqueville and Beteille. Their experience
means that they lived in two
worlds, with an allegiance to both. For somewhat
different, but overlapping,
reasons de Tocqueville and Beteille sense the
attractions of both hierarchy
and equality, and even more importantly sense
that a pure state of one or the
other is rare. They know from their own
experience that there is disharmony,
a telling word in Beteille's formulation, or
contradiction, in which ideology
and practice clash. They are thus able to move
beyond the first step of
recognizing contrast to the deeper recognition of
similarity with difference;
that is to the recognition of dialectical
tensions and the clash of contradictory
forces which gives their work a much more
realistic approximation to the
movement of societies in history.
Because
of his personal and structural position Beteille has been one of
the few recent writers to have significantly
advanced our understanding of
equality a,-id inequality. In this respect, as in
others, we are grateful to him
for his clear, insightful and beautifully
coherent writing which reveals so
much about our predicament. Like de Tocqueville
facing 'America', Beteille
301
shows us in an indirect way the struggles of an
upright and sensitive man,
deeply imbued with his mother's love of truth and
Gandhian ideals of equality,
trying to come to terms with the excitement, but
also the hypocrisies, dangers
and scarcely hidden injuries of the proclaimed
'equalizing' mission of the
West. Like other major thinkers he stands between
worlds and helps to
illuminate our options.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to Ramachandra Guha and Jonathan
Parry for their insightful
comments on an earlier draft of this article
which have helped me to
reformulate the argument
NOTES
I For the first instalment of Beteille's
autobiography, which will clarify issues in
his background, see Beteille (1997).
2 Montesquieu's arguments, and an expanded
version of this account of de
Tocqueville's theories, will be given in my book
provisionally titled The Riddle
of the World.
3 Of course this does not mean that there are not
tensions, for example frequent
.peasant' revolts, see for instance Vlastos
(1986.)
4 The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the Edo
period (after the capital city of
Edo or Tokyo as it is now known), was from 1603
to 1868.
5 For a critique of Dumont (1970,1977), see
Macfarlane (1992) and Beteille (1993).
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