Everyday Forms of Class Struggle between Ex-Patrons and Ex-Clients

Abstract

The green revolution in Malaysia, as elsewhere, has produced higher incomes and economic security for large farmers, and stagnant or declining incomes for the poor. In the case reported here, the advent of double-cropping, new tenure systems, and combine harvesting has allowed wealthy villagers to strip away the employment, land rental, and social concessions on which the traditional patron-client relations were based. Islamic charity has also been curtailed now that the rich have little need for the services of the poor. As a consequence, class relations have become more acrimonious. This takes the form of gossip and character assassination in which the immediate agents of change (rather than those more distant) are blamed and in which accusations of stinginess and tightfistedness prevail. The violation of the norms of generosity and reciprocity on which the ideology of clientelism rests leads to a form of class consciousness that stresses the personal, moral failings of the ex-patron class.