Revolutionary Socialism??

This blog is going to be super long but I hope you tough it out and read it because I put a lot of time into this one as I think it forces us to think about some important things, regardless of our chosen political affiliations.

I have been doing a lot of reading for my American Revolution class and one of the books we are currently reading is “The Unknown American Revolution” by Gary B. Nash. I’m not in love with this book but I recently read a chapter that literally left my head spinning. I hope to hear from some of you regarding your thoughts on the story Gary Nash tells us here:

Ch 5, Section 4: “Rioting to Eat”

“There has been much rout and noise in the town for several weeks,” wrote Abigail Adams to her husband, who was still in Philadelphia in the summer of 1777. “Some stores had been opened by a number of people and the coffee and sugar carried into the market and dealt out by the pounds.” On July 24, women took the lead in battling a perfectly patriotic Boston merchant, Thomas Boylston. Indeed, two years before, Boylston had been on the British blacklist- a dangerous and vehement patriot. But while wealthy and eminent, Boylston was also “miserly” and “stingy” to use Abigail’s terms. Seeing an opportunity for windfall profits by withholding coffee and sugar from the market, thus driving up the price, he now faced a horde of angry Boston women. When he refused to sell his coffee at a reasonable price, “a number of females, some say a hundred, some say more,” related Abigail, “assembled with a cart and trucks, marched down to the warehouse, and demanded the keys, which he refused to deliver.” When Boylston (who happened to be the first cousin of John Adams’s mother), tried to face the women down, “one of them seized him by the neck and tossed him into the cart. Upon his finding no quarter, he delivered the keys, when they tipped up the cart and discharged him, then opened the warehouse, hoisted out the coffee themselves, put it into the trucks, and drove off.” Abigail doubted, she told John, that the women administered “a spanking” to the purse-proud Boylston, as some said, but she was certain about the fact that “a large concourse of men stood amazed silent spectators of the whole transaction.”

Abigail Adams was describing what in Europe was called taxation populaire- the people’s seizure of basic commodities and their subsequent sale at a fair price. Historians have seen this as an example of “the moral economy” at work, the implementation of an age old principle where no individual economic actor- whether merchant, miller, farmer, or shopkeeper- was entitled to enrich himself at the public’s expense, especially in a crisis situation.
On the home front, female militancy revolved around obtaining subsistence commodities. While their husbands and sons fought the British, the women and children had to eat. Almost by definition, the war between the Americans and England dislocated the market economy. The prolonged clash of arms cut off avenues of trade to the West Indies and continental Europe, created shortages as marauding American and British armies requisitioned food and livestock, forced the Americans to rely on paper currency (which soon led to rampant inflation), and offered unusual opportunities for unscrupulous merchants, retailers, and even famers to manipulate the price of foodstuffs.

Replying to Abigail’s account of Thomas Boylston’s comeuppance, John Adams made light of the incident, telling his wife that her letter “made me merry with the female frolic with the miser.” But it was far from a frolic for women in Boston and countless other towns. Many of them were managing their families, farms, and urban shops in the absence of men. Trying to cope with a disordered economy, women became involved in a majority of these food riots and often were the principal organizers. Striding on to the public stage, they became arbiters of what was fair, what was patriotic, and what was necessary to serve the needs of the whole community. Fighting for ethical marketplace conduct was consonant with supporting “the glorious cause”; conversely, men like Thomas Boylston displayed anti-patriotism by contributing to the misery of middle and lower class families- those who bore the brunt of battlefield blood sacrifices.

Marketplace riots began almost before the ink was dry on the Declaration of Independence. Just a few days after the Continental Congress had agreed to sever ties with England, merchant Samuel Colton and retailers Jonathan and Hezekiah hale felt the anger of their neighbors for marking up prices on scarce molasses, sugar, salt, and rum in the close-knit village of Longmeadow, a few miles from Springfield in the Connecticut River valley. Not mincing words, Longmeadow’s citizens warned that “every man whose actions are unfriendly to the common cause of our country ought to be convinced of his wrong behavior and made to reform, or treated as an open enemy.” The tongue-lashing continued: “We find you guilty of very wrong behavior in selling at extravagant prices, particularly West Indian goods. This conduct… is very detrimental to the liberties of America. We therefore your offended brethren demand satisfaction of you… by a confession for your past conduct and thorough reformation for time to come.”
Sharply chastised, the hales recanted, agreeing to sell at prices specified by the assembled crowd. But Samuel Colton resisted. The town’s wealthiest man, his roots traced back to Longmeadow’s founders in the 1640’s. Ship owner, slave owner, head of a large household, and owner of the town’s finest dwelling, he was accustomed to the respect that most “river God’s” of the Connecticut River valley enjoyed. But now he had to eat humble pie. Deep into the night, a knot of blackfaced Longmeadow townsmen, wrapped in blankets “like Indians”, broke into Colton’s store, carried off his cache of sugar, salt, rum, and molasses, and put the liberated goods in the hands of the town clerk. The crowd included the deacon of Longmeadow’s Congregational Church and the cousin of Colton’s wife. After selling the commodities at a fair price, the town clerk tried to give the proceeds to Colton. When he refused to accept the money, crowd leaders entered his house, plunked the sum down on a table, and left. They had made their point: Those who tried to line their pockets at the expense of ordinary members of the community must answer for their misdeeds and yield to the collective will (p232-234).

Bloggers note: If you’ve been cheering for the townspeople’s let’s skip ahead in the chapter so you may consider this:

Controlling prices in the name of the community’s need troubled many moderate patriots and infuriated conservative ones. Many states set price limits in 1776 and 1777 on such essentials as bread and meat but they did so reluctantly. By 1777-78, merchants, retailers, and some farmers began pressuring state governments to repeal the price control laws, seeing them “as directly opposite to the idea of liberty,” as Boston merchants argued to the legislature (p237).


From a political standpoint, the idea of setting price controls so that the community needs are put before those of the individual does seem to have socialist implications. At the same time we can clearly see that these people felt that their demands were crucial to upholding their perception of liberty. On the other hand, by meeting the definition of liberty for the masses, the liberty of the individual businessman is compromised as he is unable to reach his maximum earning potential. Condsidering this argument I then wonder if the moral requirements of tending to the masses is so great that the needs of the individual must be set aside. This of course beggs the question: if they are set aside, is freedom some how lessened?

These are tough questions and each of has our own answers I guess. This reading captivated me because revealed that liberty means different things to different people and that those ideas can be in complete conflict with each other but can still be associated with democracy. Obviously we live in very different times, but the situation described here has a very familiar ring to it.

What do you think blog readers? Is one side of this argument more valid than the other?