RuralSociology00(00),2018,pp.00–00 DOI:10.1111/ruso.12226 Copyright©2018,bytheRuralSociologicalSociety Rural Conservatism orAnarchism? ThePro-state,Stateless, and Anti-state Positions Loka Ashwood DepartmentofAgriculturalEconomicsandRuralSociology AuburnUniversity Abstract Popular discourse today so weds rurality and conservatism togetherintheUnitedStatesthatonedoesnotseemquiteathomewithout theother.Butwhatisitreallyabouttheruralthatbeckonsslapjacklabelsof conservatism? Scholars and practitioners, only a handful of them rural sociologists, have suggested a variety of explanations: antigovernmentalism, religion,lackofeducation,manuallabor,poverty,primitivism,andaculture of poverty, among others. Each of these approaches, though, misses a sustained agent of rural dispossession and depopulation: the state. This article theorizes rural politics through pro-state, stateless, and anti-state positions. I bridge literature that documents the state as an agent of industrialization,extraction,exploitation,consolidation,andcorporatization inruralAmericaandliteratureonpoliticsandtherural.Intheprocessofmy review,Isuggestanarchismcanhelpexplainthesignificanceandpotentialof thestatelessandanti-statepositionsinruralpolitics. Introduction Inwakeofthe2016U.S.presidentialelection,punditsandnewsreport- ersleveledtheirattentionontheruralred.“Revengeoftheruralvoter,” Politico calledit(BottemillerEvich2016). “Urban andRuralVoters Are Becoming Increasingly Polarized,” warned the Washington Post as it pointed out the heavily populated but geographically small centers of blue amid the crimson swath (Gamio 2016). Perhaps unknowingly invoking Cynthia Duncan’s book title ([1999] 2014), Reuters reported that “In Rural-Urban Divide, U.S. Voters Are Worlds Apart” (Carey 2016). Just earlier that year, Brexit evoked similar reactions abroad. One commentator with the European Council on Foreign Relations calledthevote“[t]herevengeofthecountryside”(deGruyter2016).A columnist featured in the Guardian speculated that “From Trump to Brexit,powerhasleakedfromcitiestocountryside”(Beckett2016). The gap between urban prosperity and rural burden is largely old news for rural scholars. Consolidation of ownership over the means of production and the metabolic rift cultivated by rural resource extrac- tion for largely urban consumption has left many rural communities depopulated and poor (Duncan [1999] 2014; Foster 1999; Gaventa 1980; Kelly-Reif and Wing 2016; Urry 1995). Even very poor: In the 2 Rural Sociology, Vol. 00, No. 00, Month 2018 UnitedStates, 85.3percentofpersistent povertycounties—thosecoun- ties where 20 percent or more of the population have lived in poverty over the last 30 years—are rural (Economic Research Service 2017). The collapse of extractive industries that cultivated both paternalism and patriarchy has destabilized the traditional position of the male breadwinner (Bell 2013; Scott 2010; Sherman 2009). Simultaneously, thoseruralregionsonceknownforvibranttownsbuiltuponlocalown- ership increasingly live under the expansive control of corporate agri- businesses and investment firms (Constance and Bonanno 1999; Desmarais et al. 2016; Hendrickson and Heffernan 2002). Immigrant workers, paid often by contract for difficult and sometimes dangerous work,cancometobearthebruntoftheblame,ratherthanthevertical and horizontal integrators that have consolidated profits and control (Harrison and Lloyd 2012). In a democracy that enforces the rule of the most over the least, an expectation reigns that sparsely populated ruralregionsoughttobearthebruntofthemostextractiveandhazard- ousindustries(Ashwood2018). Thus, while the presidential election results may have startled some, the result was of little surprise, at least if one is to take rural sociology literatureseriously.Conditionswereripeforsuchanantiestablishment, “MakeAmericagreatagain”vote.Further,ruralpeoplehadbeenvoting atsimilarly high levels for presidential Republican candidates for some time (Monnat and Brown 2017). Yet the broader academic community andthemediadidnotturntoruralsociologyforanswers.Anautobiog- raphy, historical accounts, political science, and the general field of sociology have all achieved a humanization of the rural plight, making for eloquent explanations of rural conservatism (Cramer 2016; Hochs- child 2016; Isenberg 2016; Vance 2016). While certainly compelling, these accounts understate the structural causes of exploitation in rural placesbymakingthefixesseemsimpler,likereformingtheDemocratic Partyorbreakingacultureofresentmentandpoverty,thanruralschol- arshaverepeatedlyfound. Using rural sociology to understand rural politics requires a no- nonsense recognition of rampant inequality, something perhaps less palatableforpopularmedia,andevensociology,thanmoreexotic,ste- reotypicalexplanations,likeruralprimitivism.Inpart,thisexplainsthe favoring of nonrural sociological routes for political explanations in recent times. Still, I find that rural sociology is missing something that goesbeyondtherelationshipbetweencapitalism,exploitation,inequal- ity, and rurality. That something is the role of the state indriving rural exploitation. By this, I do not mean a state co-opted by capitalist inter- estsaspartofthegrowthmachineandresourceextraction(Humphrey — Ashwood 3 etal.1993;Molotch1976).WhatImeanisastatewhosedevelopmental agenda explicitly assumes (and even relies on) rural exploitation. Accordingly,ruralpoliticscanbehastilylabeledasconservativeforlack ofamorenuancedexplorationoftheinterdependencyoftheelements of the corporate state. As in sociology more broadly, there is scant the- ory to understand why anyone would want less of the government, rather than more of the right kind of government (Nisbet 2002; Smith 2014). Debate fails to move beyond a working-within-the-state mantra, even though rural people and places have regularly found themselves victimized by state schemes, inspired by progressives and conservatives alike(Scott1999;Wynne1996). Tomovebeyondtheliberalandconservativeoppositionthatprevails inthenewsaswellasintheory,Iproposeathree-partunderstandingof politicsrootedinthestate:pro-state,anti-state,andstatelesspositions.I use the pro-state position to capture political ideologies that call for stateconstruction,regulation,andmediationoflifeaccordingtoissues ofmorality,socialwelfare,andthemarketeconomy.Thiscapturesrural support of traditional moral norms, resistance to social welfare, and outrightsupportofcorporateagribusiness.Oftenthisiswherepolitical theory ends, as well as analyses of rural politics. I move forward, with thehelpofanarchisttheory,tobringinthestatelessandanti-stateposi- tions to complicate understandings of rural politics. The stateless posi- tioncapturestheruralcentricpaganandagrarianideologiesthatthere is no need for a state of centralized authority, powers, and cities. This premise folds into what I call the anti-state position, the defensive ver- sion of the stateless position, which is held by those who have been wrongedbythestate,through,forexample,naturalresourceextraction orindustrialagriculturalproduction. The pro-state, anti-state, and stateless understandings of rural poli- tics offer a chance to examine the manipulation of rural belief struc- tures rhetorically and their actual enactment according to prevailing political theories—neoliberalism, conservatism, liberalism, radicalism, andanarchism.Thisapproachhelpsrevealunderlyingtensionbetween anti-statists:thosewho wanttosimplyreduce thestateatanycost, what Icallretractors,andthosewhoeventuallywanttoreducestatepowerin favor of communities, but in the meantime advocate strong state sup- port of the vulnerable—what I call reformers. Without recognition of their shared stateless ideal, it can seem that such anti-state advocates stand far apart, and have little, to no, equal footing, as their modern- day American political labels of conservative and liberal, respectively, suggest. I offer that the lack of genuine stateless representation on the political stage fosters a divide between reformers and retractors, 4 Rural Sociology, Vol. 00, No. 00, Month 2018 especially in rural contexts, that in some sense need not exist. In the meantime, the opportunity grows for the exploitation of the stateless position by self-titled populists who have elite, pro-state agendas, but arewellversedinstatelessrhetoric. Pro-statism Sociology is implicitly biased, even a bit blinded, by a pro-state orienta- tionthatmakesconservativismseemthebestfitforunderstandingrural people (Smith 2014). There exists little theoretical basis to say other- wise. Much modern political theory is rooted in the classic, theoretical groupings of conservatism, radicalism, and liberalism, and more recently neoliberalism, which each assume the state as a starting point. Thusantiauthoritarianismandantigovernmentalismarelargelyconsid- ered spurious or ignorant (Shantz and Williams 2013). Political theo- ries like republicanism, Americanism, and populism cross and mix tenetsofradicalismwithconservativeandliberalmotives,whilesharing the same, statecentric underbelly (Smith 1993; Wood 1969). Four pil- lars of the sociological canon—DuBois, Durkheim, Marx, Weber—take overtly statecentric approaches in their research. The only exception, Tocqueville, dabbled slightly in anarchism, although he is hardly explicit,andthispartofhisworkislargelymarginalizedintheacademy (Scott 2014). In this section, I identify the ways in which pro-statism dominates political theory and understandings of rural politics. But I alsopointouthowconservatism,radicalism,neoliberalism,andliberal- ism in action or rhetoric actually incorporate stateless and anti-state positions, whichcurrentlyarelargelyoverlooked. By“stateless,” Imean the standpoint from which life is seen as best lived free from a central- ized,bureaucratic,andadministrativeapparatusofpower.Byanti-state, I mean the defensive version of the stateless position, whereby either thestateistoberemadeindefenseofthepeopleorreducedatallcosts as the ultimate end of a free society. In reviewing the pro-state bias in political theory, I set the stage for exploring anti-statism and stateless- ness as anarchist elements of rural politics that help explain current tensions. Conservatism combines pro-statist moral traditionalism and support of a market economy with stateless and anti-state rhetoric, and some anti-stateaction(Table1).Inpractice,modern-dayconservatismisany- thing but stateless, imposing, for example, the corporate agribusiness agendaandresourceextractionthatleadstoruralsocialandeconomic decline (Buttel2005). Butitdoes,from timetotime,reducethescope of the state by retracting other kinds of nonmarket economy support, — Ashwood 5 ess el at St X ct e. ra heStat nti-state mRet XX X t A or n ef o n R XXXX s o tion Acti ality si or o M XXX X P ent ate etmy Differ Pro-st MarkEcono XXX e e Thre SocialWelfar X X X o t ding ateless cor St XX X es. Ac act phi Philosophies oric Anti-state ReformRetr XXXXXX politicalsphiloso olitical Rhet Morality XX X ofsuch P nts cal ate etmy me Classi Pro-st MarkEcono cenact fi alysisof SocialWelfare X X U.S.speci Table1.An AnarchismConservatismLiberalismNeoliberalismRadicalism Xsdenote 6 Rural Sociology, Vol. 00, No. 00, Month 2018 like social welfare (Table 1). Sociological studies and theory have mostly focused only on the pro-statist imposition of morality and tradi- tionalismasafacetofruralconservativism.Thisis,inpart,indisputable, and well documented in the rural context. Advocating the broader preservation of tradition or one’s religion requires the imposition of a certainkindofstate.Ruralpeopleoftenself-describeaspeopleoffaith, especially in the American South’s Black Belt (Lincoln and Mamiya 1990;McNicolStock1996;Thurman[1949]1976;Wilson2017;Winter and Short 1993). Four of ten rural voters reside in the South, as the South disproportionately has more rural people, meaning more voting evangelicals(MonnatandBrown2017).Inadditiontomoralviews,the notion that keeping out immigrants requires building a wall beckons a certain kind of state imposition, one of President Donald Trump’s so- called populist platforms. In action, Trump’s wall is anything but state- less, requiring ample tax money to implement it on the taxed backs of those it seemingly serves. But, simultaneously, the general exodus of jobs and youth from rural America has helped cultivate xenophobic attitudes,especiallywhenimmigrantstakeuplow-paying,high-riskposi- tions (Fennelly 2014). This, though, is not always the case, and some rural adolescents are especially resistant to such stereotypes (Gimpel and Lay 2008). Relatedly, state-imposed, even racist, traditionalism has been documented in England, where some rural people consider the white English countryside as indicative of the “real” Britain (Bell 1994; Cloke2006;Holloway2007). Rural people can thus balk at urbanity, an attitude that can include nostalgia for community norms, feudal economy, and morality or dis- dain toward intellectualism. In one phrase, to borrow from Nisbet (2002),ruralpeoplefitintotheclassictheoreticallabelofconservatives as prophets of thepast, opposed to theoutcomesof theIndustrial and French Revolutions. Conservatives are classically defined as those who defended medieval traditions, and the community and kinship struc- tures borne by traditional forms of hierarchy and authority. That authoritytodaycancomethroughthestateimpositionofheteronorma- tive,nuclearfamilyatruralbehest.Popularrepresentationsoftherural, alongwithmuchofeverydaylife,arefraughtwithdichotomousgender norms (Bell 2000; Little 2002), although manual work can help rural womentranscendtraditionalroles(Kazyak2012).Traditionalhierarchy can also privilege a dedication to manual work, supported by commu- nity norms that valorize work ethics (Sherman 2009). Rural people, in line with conservatism today, consequently balk at state imposition of socialwelfare,andalongthoselines,typicallyhavelessunionrepresen- tation (Jacobs and Glass 2015). When such conservative anti-statism is — Ashwood 7 enacted,itoftendoessobyreducingsocialwelfare.Butnotthemarket economy. All of this makes rural people appear advocates of conservatism, at leastinthewaypoliticsareconceivedofinthecurrentsociologicalpar- adigm. Rural people also then appear patently opposed to radicalism, conceived of again in a pro-state view according to redistribution of wealth and morality (see Table 1). Classically, “radical” is defined as “faithinabsolutepower”typicallyenactedthroughthecommuniststate (Nisbet 2002:11). The radical approach, mostly associated with Marx, has often taken an explicitly antirural stance that is overtly hostile to localism(Nisbet2002).Withtheurbanworking-classtakeoverofgover- nance, Marx ([1848 1972) suggests, industrial, agricultural armies in service of the state would displace peasants. He describes rural life as idiotic,andpeasantsasasackofpotatoes(Marx[1848]1972).Theview still persists today, with living in the country often considered a sign of failure by progressive statists, a fate suitable for the ignorant country bumpkin(Berry2003). The radical approach often carries a disdain for manual work, espe- cially agrarian labor. DuBois, whose late-life alliance with communism also situates him among radicals, made his name writing about the rural. In contrast to Marx, DuBois ([1895] 1999) certainly appreciates the beauty and plight of those people and places he speaks of in the BlackBeltofGeorgia,andwhileateacherinthehillsofTennessee.Yet in his sustained attempts to battle against the technocratic reconcilia- tion approach advocated by Booker T. Washington, he regularly sees elite education as the ultimate venue for black liberation, in essence treatingnon-state-sanctionedskillsaslessvaluable.Myintentionhereis nottodigupanold,unconstructive,either-ordebateoverwhatismore important—getting technical jobs for the poor or higher education. ButIdothinkitiscriticaltorecognizethatthereisatendencyforintel- lectual superiority among radical state advocates predicated on an either implicit or explicit disdain for more physical and risky types of labor, those often found in rural communities (for example, farming, fishing, and mining). This, again, helps explain the rural turn to con- servatism within the pro-state context, in opposition to radicalism. Rather than recognizing such labor as important, valid, and perhaps even equal in its own right to the highest of educated endeavors, the radicalism of industrialization and collectivization instead advocates a state whose power is predicated upon the expropriation of labor from self-subsistence, and the rise of a centralized state (Springer 2016). In doing so, radicals can disrespect the intellectualism that goes into doing good manual work, a belief found in Hochschild’s (2016) 8 Rural Sociology, Vol. 00, No. 00, Month 2018 account,despiteherwell-meaningattempttotreadcarefully.Radicalism’s entrenchedattachmenttobig-statesolutionsworksagainststatelesssenti- ments that hierarchy births inequality, and centralizes wealth in the cities—part of the growing rural consciousness focused against urban elites(Cramer2016). Accordingly, radicalism largely misses rural support and representa- tion, leaving perhaps the more moderate, liberal pro-state position seeminglyanoptionforruralpeople(Table1).And,indeed,thereare somewhotaketheliberalpositioninruralAmerica,whomaybepartof the31.3percentofruralpeoplewhovotedforHillaryClinton(Monnat and Brown 2017), but certainly are not limited to it, as my use of “liberal” is in the theoretical sense. Liberals, in contrast to radicals, advocate for a less powerful state, albeit one wedded to the ideas of enlightenment, progress, and property rights (Nisbet 2002). Classic republicanism long was a stronghold of liberalism, where the powerful state existed to defend the rights of all (Wood 1969). Current progres- sivepoliticsrelatedtomoralityconsequentlyfallinline,forexamplein the support of transsexuality and religious pluralism. Indeed, this runs against the grain of Bible Belt views, paired more comfortably with conservatism. Perhaps,though,differencesinviewsofmoralitywouldnotbesosig- nificant if liberalism, simultaneously with its enlightenment ideals, did not enact an industrial, corporate agenda. After all, its pro-statist views are more moderate than radicalism, in large part because its key sup- porters, like Weber and Durkheim, were opposed to socialism (Ritzer 2011). Yet liberalism has maintained an antipeasant and often anti- agrarian view that favors industrialism. For example, Weber saw the elimination of agrarian, community ties as freeing, and necessary for progress.SodidDurkheim([1937]2003),whoseworkisregrettablytel- eological. Durkheim labeled pagan ideologies and relationships as mechanicalandlessdeveloped,belongingtoagrarianorhunter-gather people that he unabashedly titles savages. Even today, agribusiness advocates, like the Farm Bureau, utilize liberalism in this sense to pro- mote the exodus of farmers and consolidation of landholdings in the name of progress. While supporters of a liberal state skirt this interac- tion—pressing the belief that the state’s main purpose is social wel- fare—it in action embraces the market economy (Table 1), largely to the detriment of rural society (Ashwood, Diamond, and Thu 2014). Rural people increasingly take note, and actively protest corporate farming, especially industrial animal production (DeLind 1995). In practice, the liberal state, with its close tie to corporate visions of pro- gress, has responded weakly. Those who see themselves as explicitly — Ashwood 9 burdened by state-sanctioned policies, and holding anti-state proclivi- ties,arefurtherestrangedfromliberalism. Liberalism has become uncomfortably intertwined with neoliberal- ism, making it vulnerable to criticism from two ends: saying itsupports socialwelfare,butsimultaneouslyimposingthemarketeconomy(Table 1). The neoliberal position has cleverly mastered the rhetoric of anti- statismandstatelessness,anopenembraceofthemarketeconomythat theliberalpositiondarenottake,duetoitsenlightenmentobligations. Neoliberalism advocates ideas like “private property rights, individual liberty, unencumbered markets, and free trade” that rhetorically seem free from statist intervention (Harvey 2007:22). In practice, though, enforcing neoliberalism requires intensive reconstruction of society andmarketstoachieveprofitcentralization,whilereducingotherparts ofthestate(PeckandTickell2002).Thesupposedderegulationassoci- ated with neoliberalism actually requires an ever more untold number of new bureaucratic apparatuses to achieve privatization (Bartley 2007; Castree 2008; Graeber 2015; Robbins and Luginbuhl 2007). Enforcing the prevalence of neoliberalism’s “competitive individualism” (Sutton 2005:175) often against more nuanced desires for reciprocity recon- structs society in the market’s image, the latest unfolding of Polanyi’s double movement ([1944] 1957). Nonetheless, the notion of reducing the scope of the state can sound good, and especially resonate with ruralAmericanswhocallforlessgovernmentinanefforttoescapethe encroachment of corporations that take away land and local farm or economicviability.Infact,thatiswhyneoliberalisminrhetoric,butnot necessarily action, has bled into conservatism and liberalism. After all, animosity toward the state is widespread in an age of profiteering. For example,theFortune500SouthernCompanycanforciblyuseeminent domain to take local land in proximity to its utilities. Those in rural Georgia living next to a Southern Company nuclear power plant respond with anti-statist views: white locals merge “government” with “corporations”; black residents call it the “system.” In either case, the corporate-state relationship is seen as corrupt and one calling for a reduction in state power (Ashwood 2018). By sounding like it is about individualrightsandhardwork,neoliberalpoliticsrhetoricallyanswers such animosity, while actually enacting, and even further empowering, theactualproblem:corporate-stateprofiteering. Altogether,conservativism’sclaimtoreducethestate,combinedwith its actual defense of traditional values, certainly seems the best match forruralpeople’sneedsrelativetoneoliberalism,radicalism,orliberal- ism.Buttostopherefailstotakeclaimmakingtotask.Itfailstoappre- ciate the stateless and anti-state possibilities for politics by assuming 10 Rural Sociology, Vol. 00, No. 00, Month 2018 that the only politics that matters are those that have some portion of pro-state interference. And it fails to appreciate that the stateless and anti-state positions are not tertiary, illogical, or irrelevant. In short, it fails to appreciate stateless and anti-statism as political, even practical views. They are permanent facets of politics, the elephant in the room that persistently shapes power struggles, while their significance remainslargelyunexplored. Statelessness Tobegintofullyincorporatestatelessnessintopoliticalunderstandings of rural people requires engaging with an overlooked dimension of political theory in sociology: anarchism. The field of geography as of latehastakenincreasingnoteofanarchismasawayforward,andalsoa historicalpillarofthediscipline(Springer2016).Sociologyscholars,in contrast, have done little, if anything, with anarchism, and the same goes largely for those studying rural sociology (Shantz and Williams 2013;Stock2007).Andthisisashame,asanarchismplaysamajorrole in precipitating social movements and revolutions. Rural rebels, who poachandtrespassinresponsetocorporateandstatelandtakings, are one case in point (Ashwood 2018). Another includes groups that choosepassivity,ornonviolentformsofprotest,suchaslivingalifesep- arate from the state or refusing to move from a space. Diggers in seventeenth-centuryEngland,forexample,triedtoestablishegalitarian agrarian communities based on ideals of self-sufficiency. These ideas continue to attract some support in San Francisco and elsewhere, and through happenings like Rainbow Gatherings and intentional commu- nities, like Dancing Rabbit (Schelly 2014, 2017). Some anarchists, though, are more explicitly destructive, like those who participated in the2017Berkeleyprotests.Deliberatedestructionnearlyprecipitateda revolution when Luddites formed secret organizations to smash machines in defense of their jobs against owners looking to decrease their costs in mid-seventeenth-century England (Harvey 2010). At first glance, such targeted destruction and, conversely, intentional or egali- tariancommunitiesmaysoundfairlyinsignificant.Buttheyarepolitical actsthatcanprecipitaterevolutionsoreliminatetheneedforthestate. TheGreekrootof“anarchy”meanssomethingalongthelinesofthe absence of authority or government (Gu(cid:2)erin 1970). A central premise ofanarchismisthat“thestatemeanscoercion,dominationbymeansof coercion,camouflagedifpossiblebutunceremoniousandovertifneed be” (Bakunin [1873] 2005:24). Anarchists, in the words of Bakunin (136), “believe that the people can be happy and free only when they