Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day

by Peter Linebaugh

“May Day is about affirmation, the love of life, and the start of spring, so it has to be about the beginning of the end of the capitalist system of exploitation, oppression, war, and overall misery, toil, and moil.” So writes celebrated historian Peter Linebaugh in an essential compendium of reflections on the reviled, glorious, and voltaic occasion of May 1st. It is a day that has made the rich and powerful cower in fear and caused Parliament to ban the Maypole—a magnificent and riotous day of rebirth, renewal, and refusal. These reflections on the Red and the Green—out of which arguably the only hope for the future lies—are populated by the likes of Native American anarcho-communist Lucy Parsons, the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, Karl Marx, José Martí, W.E.B. Du Bois, Rosa Luxemburg, SNCC, and countless others, both sentient and verdant. The book is a forceful reminder of the potentialities of the future, for the coming of a time when the powerful will fall, the commons restored, and a better world born anew.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Labor

200 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2016

About the author

Peter Linebaugh is an American Marxist historian who specializes in British history, Irish history, labor history, and the history of the colonial Atlantic.

Reviews

[Dianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The essays would be easier to hear than to read. They are impassioned as all of Linebaugh's writing is, but for me, there is too much information with too little background. If you don't have a good grasp of the hisorical, you may get lost. I did.

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book consists of a collection of essays the author, a historian, wrote to commemorate May Day from the 80s through 2011 with an additional essay consisting of the speech he gave upon retiring from academia in 2014.

Unfortunately, in general, I didn't think these essays were particularly well-written or well-organized, although the reader can glean useful and interesting bits of information by reading the book. The recurring May Day essays became repetitive and by now I understand the significance of Haymarket to May Day, how the US gov tried to co-opt May Day by starting a new holiday (Labor Day) and renaming May Day Law Day. The insights into facets of labor history were interesting, but these essays lacked depth or power, somehow.

The book in general covers the struggles of the dispossessed world-wide, such as the American Indians, the proletarians, and so forth. Albert Parsons, one of the activists hung after Haymarket, quoted from the Bible (James) on Thanksgiving Day 1884, at a poor peoples' march, as follows:

"Next a word to you who have treat possessions. Weep and wail over the miserable fate descending on you. Your riches have rotted; your fine clothes are moth-eaten; your silver and gold have rusted away, and the very rust will be evidence against you and consume your flesh like fire. You have piled up wealth in an age that is near its close. The wages you never paid to the men who mowed your fields are loud against you, and the outcry of the reapers has reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts. You have lived on earth in wanton luxury, fattening yourselves like cattle and the day for slaughter has come. You have condemned the innocent and murdered him; he offers no resistance."

This was a prophetic Biblical passage for Parsons to read, considering that he himself within a few years would swing for his Haymarket activism.

May Day around the world commemorates Parsons and the other 3 who were hung, but the observance is much more muted in the US, as the gov and businesses combined to suppress labor and left-wing activism.

The author makes much of the commons, which was ripped away during the enclosures, and calls the settlement of the New World one big land grab or enclosure action. It is possible that the commons was monetized, that is, surveyed, divided up, and sold. That was a key feature of the settlement of the New World - making definite boundaries and deeds, buying and selling land. It was in stark contrast to the much more casual "ownership" or "territory" tribes might claim - even in the more settled, agricultural South. Unfortunately, the Indians were outmatched - the "proof" of the land deed, treaties, and so forth, the entire legal structure of ownership, they didn't have among themselves - not even a written language to record approximate boundaries. But was their looser system better or worse than that of those who preferred to define property, especially real property, such as land? The Indians in many areas hardly needed to define "ownership" or "real property" - the contrast between life in Europe vs. life in N. America prior to European settlement couldn't have been starker. There was probably much less population density in the New World, and the inhabitants could easily satisfy their food needs by hunting and gathering (basically) with either mor or less agriculture depending on location (more agriculture in the Southern areas - less the more North you went). They were able to subsist this way seemingly for millennia - either there was no need to domesticate livestock, or the herds of animals that roamed N. America could not be domesticated. Since they could basically live off the land, and might have migrated with the seasons to some extent, there wasn't much of a reason to delineate definite ownership - other than a generally accepted acknowledgment that certain tribes were found in some areas, including their villages, while others lived in other areas. You could say N. America, or the New World, was one giant commons - perhaps the way Europe itself had once been long, long ago, prior to the domestication of livestock, the development of agriculture such that surplus production was possible, and finally commerce/trade, once it was possible to have enough to trade. (Of course there were many more key developments in the story, such as metal working, writing, math, and so forth.) Anyway, the discussion above is of course greatly simplified but in general, the idea is, that collective use of land, such as a forest or grazing land, is "natural" or closer to the way man is supposed to live,as opposed to all land ownership being carefully delineated, either privatized or in gov hands. Of course, that is probably true: Everyone once probably lived within a commons, or an area that wasn't owned by anyone in particular, or nearby a forest that wasn't owned, or a grazing area etc. I can see how and why this would be important to rural people or those engaging in small scale agricultural or raising maybe a small number of livestock. Today, though, the world is a lot different than it was in pre-historic times. The population is much bigger (to say the least) and people have different expectations. I think a lot of urban dwellers might not be too enthusiastic about having access to an area such as a commons for a number of reasons - such as security, if the area were not under some jurisdiction, then would there be law enforcement? Also, the commons could also contain dangerous animals such as wolves, bears, and so forth, as well as tick-borne diseases; moreover, a great deal of exposure to UV radiation is linked to skin cancer. I think many urban dwellers might want to view the commons, but might not be that interested in having continual access to it, much less living in it. I mean, it would be nice if rambling in a sparsely populated area were perfectly safe - perhaps with a hiking group, roaming in the mountains and such is fun and harmless, inspiring even. I just do not see why regaining the commons is key to regenerating social health, which is what Linebaugh seems to hint at. If we're no longer hunter-gatherers (and we know mankind doesn't want to return to that era of human development if they can help it) and for better or worse there is specialization rather than autonomy, so that farmers specialize in food production, which they sell (or I suppose could barter) for things they cannot produce such as manufactured goods, which others make who are not farmers, then you have to wonder what it might be like to return to self-sufficiency, hunting, gathering, small scale agriculture and so forth - at an immense scale given the giant population today vs. prehistoric days. Would people be better off with no private land, and trying to produce things for themselves, maybe living a much simpler life? Or would they be worse off? Certainly, removing private land ownership would bring about a significant leveling effect - since land ownership is an important way of becoming rich. I just don't know why un specialized organization of society is necessarily better. Yes, it might remove social strata, if there was no specialization, minimal trade, no land ownership. It's an idealistic vision, but since the pre historic era, social complexity and specialization has evolved. Can all social ills be traced to private ownership and accumulation? There are different theories advanced as to whether specialization, technological advancement, complexity, was in the end a good thing or a bad thing. Certainly, life spans have increased - an achievement that only is possible given all the supposed "ills" of "civilization" that came before. For many eons, life-spans were brief, it was only technological advances and study that enabled scientists to find out the causes of disease and work to eradicate them, as well as keep track of many other highly beneficial aspects of medicine such as surgical outcomes. I think the average person would praise at least that aspect of modernity. Nonetheless, the pre- contact Indians were said to have been tall, well-built, and healthy. Possibly that was because they had to live economical lives, in a setting of scarcity (despite the plentiful wildlife). There probably was never enough but the reduced caloric intake might not have adversely affected them. Empty calories were unknown as were alcoholic beverages (I am pretty sure). They must have had a not very varied (limited) diet but it didn't adversely affect them. I'm not sure they were better off with no "advanced civilization" or worse off. Maybe it was the lack of complexity that led to them continuing to live the age-old way - or vice versa. They had remedies, but could they really keep track of observations or knowledge, other than handing down information via word of mouth? Add to that, there were many distinct languages in N. America - a feature that probably did lead to disunity among the tribes and an inability of one tribe to effectively communicate information about the Europeans to another tribe. The Europeans had a distinct advantage (one of many) in being in a position to collect and share among themselves information about the tribes etc., whereas the tribes at least at first were unable to do the same thing on their side. The tribes were largely swept aside as the Europeans "conquered" the continent or hemisphere even. The new commons for them were the greatly reduced, rather artificial constructs of reservations - which have not been much of a success, considering the generally dismal social disintegration of tribes housed therein. Somehow, a reservation is not exactly the same thing as owning land outright. Why did the whites not sell land to Indians even if the Indians had the means to buy land, but instead insist that they live on a reservation instead? Was it simply racism, was it mistrust - that the Indians could never be trusted and thus needed to be kept within a specific area, and were ever after forbidden from venturing out? As if they had to be imprisoned, even if the only crime they ever committed was being Indians? I think the answer is the lingering question of land claims, if the Indians had been allowed to buy and sell land like the whites. There would have been an issue of title - if the Indians bought land that they could prove the trible already owned. The concept of tribal owned land - or commons - is antithetical to privately owned land. These concepts can't be reconciled. Suppose an Indian lived in a tribal village in Brooklyn - if they later bought land in the same area, that once belonged to them, could they later turn around and say, the rest of the land is also the tribes? Who could say that was not so, if the tribe had "sold" the land to the whites previously? Also, if the land was held in common by the tribe, how could anyone in the tribe have sold it, since none of them individually owned it? Could that land really be sold? If it could not be sold, then it was never actually sold - thus strengthening the subsequent claims of Indians who had once occupied that land collectively with other tribal members. I don't thin these questions could ever be resolved and that was why the Indians were offered a "new commons" unfortunately usually poor land that the whites did not want as a replacement for the much better land the whites preceded to grab, survey, buy and sell among themselves, based on treaties selling their land that really could not logically be upheld given that no-one in any given tribe actually owned tribal land (the commons). Linebaugh is right in saying that the settlement of the New World was a giant land grab - but there is no turning back time. The settlers thought up all sorts of rationales for acting the way they did and grabbing the land from the Indians (the Indians were "savage heathens, blood-thirsty, and so forth"). It took several centuries to complete the privatization of the New World. Still, collective action or organization continues to be needed - on huge scales, as with the financial/legal organization of modern nations. The idea that a farmer can be autonomous is an antique notion, largely. Society is inter-connected, yet also cooperates in collective action, enterprises and so forth - maybe more so than ever before, the fate of each member of society depends on the other members' doing the right thing. Specialization and complexity make living a completely autonomous or self-sufficient life ("off the grid") practically impossible. I think the thinkers who looked to the pre-historic era as a time when social classes were leveled, and there was minimal accumulation, as an era to aspire to in order to cure social ills, didn't take into account that specialization and complexity actually has a positive aspect (as noted above - one example, to be sure - medical advances) and that many people would not want to trade in those advances in order to level society. The trade-off is too severe and it's not really something many people would aspire to, if it meant that scientific/intellectual progress would need to be ended, once complexity ended. Philosophers have tried to come up with the best way to organize society, from time immemorial - since there have always obviously been distinct social deficiencies and injustices from day 1. Is a gradual approach better, or a more abrupt change, as with revolutions? Revolutionists tend to imagine that all ills will be cured "come the Revolution" but is that really the case? Is it really better if the State owns everything? That approach has been tried, but mostly, either did not work out or the countries that did not want to see the revolutionary countries succeed, more or less undercut and ensured that those societies would fail (as the success of revolutionary societies would show up the standard/private-property based system as deficient and less than perfect). Suppose the very rich gave up most of their money and there were also no more very poor people. Without accumulation and much discretionary income, the world might not have poor people per se, but the world might be rather drab. I'm not going to theorize if such a system might work - obviously, versions of it have been tried with varying success. The idealism of the commons though was certainly poisoned by not making the change voluntary and instead coercing or forcing people to give up their wealth/land/money - to "re-commonize" their property, de-privatize it. If they weren't compensated for their losses (and usually they weren't) there would always be a legacy of bitterness and probably a thirst for at least justice if not outright revenge. The state then tended to become highly heavy-handed and implement "police state" measures in furtherance of its policies. One bad thing led to another - if a moderate standard of living was achieved for all, with no rich people anymore and no poor people either - consider the price. Shouldn't "idealism" be voluntary, if karma/hubris isn't to overtake the new social structure? If the goal of a classless society is a positive one, almost Biblical in its conception, shouldn't it have been enthusiastically embraced by all? If the new system is great, wouldn't there have been no need for coercion or a police state? Of course, this is exactly what didn't happen - the new system wasn't compatible with democracy, or cooperation, or voluntarily divestment of property, because most people cling to what they have built up, or accumulated, or own and most people don't trust that the "collective" or the commons will take care of them. The lack of trust in others is probably a hallmark of privatization/capitalism - the view that one must accumulate because the other will not necessarily step in to help. The paranoia about holding on to property is exactly the opposite of what's envisioned for those who might embrace the commons. You could have a small number of personal goods as an Indian, but otherwise, the land belonged to no-one, there was no livestock, and even agriculture was casual (except in the S, where there were more settled/permanent farming communities). It's really difficult for people to suddenly pop from one social construct to another - and so the result was massive loss of life in countries where they tried to de-privatize and bring back the commons. The social programs that we have in the West, don't come close to the idea of the commons as the one organizing social principle, since even with the programs, people can accumulate on their own, own property, become rich, or, on the other hand, they might become quite poor. I'm not sure where society is heading - after the multiple crises of capitalism, such as the most recent collapse of '08. Will people turn to the idea of a commons as a panacea, even if social organization is much more complex today than it was in pre historic times? Will people view expropriation of private land, and so forth, as the "cure" for poverty - that is, no one becomes particularly wealthy and no one becomes particularly poor, if accumulation is no longer allowed? The experiment was tried several times but not too successfully - is it possible that in our much more connected age, which is, if possible, even more complex, the idea of the commons might be feasible? Or is it still as antithetical as ever to the generally accepted concept of private ownership of property etc.? The above rather primitive discussion doesn't even begin to consider complex and ever more sophisticated financial organization - another hallmark of our capitalist era. Could financing/investment really be possible if private wealth were abolished? Didn't central control/planning prove to be less than perfect? Of course, since then, society does demand much more community control over development and the decision making process is more transparent than in the age of the Robber Barons and so forth. However, imagine if there were no rich people and no poor people either. Could there still be complexity under the circumstances? If there were no wealthy people (following the de-privatization of their holdings) and there were no people in a position to buy "priceless" art or artifacts, would luxury goods still be worth that much money, if no one person actually owned that much money? It's only possible to have extremely expensive items such as yachts, sports cars, gold jewelry if there is a market for them. If the market utterly disappears, then what would the formerly expensive yachts, homes, cars, and so forth, be worth? Doesn't the existence of a market for luxury goods, determine the price of the goods? Presumably if there were no rich people - after their wealth had been de-privatized - then luxury goods would drop in value, so as to be affordable to the resulting vast middle class, which would also have absorbed the masses of poor people. If there were no social classes anymore, and everyone were middle class, would there still be a focus or fascination with the rich and famous, around whom the entire industry of celebrity is built?

Anyway, to finish up my review of the book - although it contained quite a bit of interesting information, the essays became repetitive, and actually, the author is not a particularly good writer, unfortunately. I think he is a "true believer" an idealist, but I'm not sure he's thought through the implications of social change in the intervening decades since Marx & others wrote their seminal works,and the evidence of the outcome of the actual pro-commons experiments that were tried. Sadly, these were not examples of shining idealism, mostly - people often weren't very enthusiastic, didn't accept the new system willingly, were not "good Indians" who embraced the commons. Was it patrimonial considerations that led to intransigence? Individuality?

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written with verve which rarely flags, these essays are ,in origin , lectures on what the author sees as the core symbol of today's resistance, the Red-Green May Day.
As my skimming of a muddled " review" here confirms, the vampires are on the brink of a triumph which may snuff out resistance effectively for ever. They [the 1% and their fellow-traveller Yuppies and Yummies] control virtually all of academia and the media.
The bloody crushing of workers' movements in the US , Land Of The Free, as in the West generally, the rampant commodification of life and the slavish dedication to comfort of ,especially, the last two generations have led Linebaugh to a constructive rage.
He outlines the struggles associated with May Day, by industrial workers ,such as the infamous Haymarket incidents in Chicago in 1886, and by peasants/villagers who resisted enclosures, the confiscation of the commons. His insights include observations on the building of a university hall, whose architect and/or master-builder is perhaps recalled by name, whereas the labourers who built the place are nameless to history.
Linebaugh's uncovering of an often unconscious racism is just as stimulating as the local history micro-history, notably in raising the matter of a manufactured, exaggerated "philhellenism" which edged out earlier tracings of "civilisation" to Egypt and Mesopotamia , from c. 1820.
The recent destruction by Americans [and their stooges] of Baghdad's library fits in both with such skewed intellectual racism and with the fundamental anti-life urge of Capital and its servants.
Against the drift towards dehumanisation, people need to organise resistance, and the various strands which emerge from these lectures are drawn together vividly by May Day .
Workers of the world unite ! Marx seems to have come to his vocation as a superb analyst of his times through his noting how the rising capitalists stole the commons where spentpart of his youth
This is a historian whose work sparkles with love of people and of nature. A must read.

[Jamie Sims · Rating 3 out of 5]

Linebaugh takes us through an eclectic people's history of May Day, highlighting the fact that the holiday is associated both with organised, industrial workers and class struggle and with nature, traditional 'commons', and Spring. He highlights many interesting historical figures, movements, and events - including the obvious ones like the Haymarket Martyrs, but also many more.

The biggest problem with this book is that it is pretty repetitive. I find this is often the case with "books" which are really just anthologies of the author's past pamphlets, blogs, and articles. The same stories, arguments, and even whole sentences recur across the various essays. This made it a drag in places, although overall the author's engaging style and the sheer breadth of historical arguments and anecdotes makes up for it.

[Lewis Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic collection of essays that tie together the traditions of pre-industrial woodland cultures with the seemingly disconnected histories from the rise of the Kings and Barons, the Magna Carta, the destruction of The Commons, The Diggers, the rise of Mercantilism and subsequent Capitalism, the Inquisition to the Witch Hunts of the Puritans and Pilgrims in Massachusetts who destroyed the May Pole and community/trading post that Thomas Morton established and who had believed that the Indian cultures were to be appreciated and not exterminated. This history served as a precursor to the early anarchist inspired labor movement, the Haymarket Massacre, and the 8 Hour Day.

Peter's collection of essays provide an insight into his personal exploration into the origins of May Day.

[Jonathon Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Puritans were pretty "salty" about Thomas Morton.

I enjoyed the pamphlet style of short stories.

[Lydia]

Thoughtful and engaging, but a little oblique for a reader not thoroughly steeped in labor history already. Includes "further reading" lists however.