Levi Fox HILA 100 10/1/99
The Riot as a Reflection of Social Stability
Control of one group of people by another, given our own experiences with slavery and the Civil War that was necessary to bring about its extinction, strikes most modern Americans as unjust. More than that, given the number of more or less popular revolutions in the past two hundred years or so of world history, such systems of control seem fragile at best and doomed to destruction at worst. Yet for most of the world’s history, and in many parts of the world today, a small elite has managed to exert social control over the much larger group of laboring masses. At least in the pre-1789 period, even on the comparably rare occasions when general “riots” or other social disturbances did occur they had no real lasting effect. Why didn’t these masses try to overthrow the system? Using the examples of England in the 18th century and Mexico City between 1620 and 1720, I intend to show that in both cases the masses did not revolt because they were satisfied or at the very least comfortable with the existing social system. More than that there existed an understanding between the top and the bottom of the social hierarchies in both instances which enabled the upper classes to head off possible revolts by making quick concessions to those below them. Indeed it was only in those cases when something changed, most often when rising bread prices or food shortages put added pressure on the lowest classes (who then put their own “pressure” upon the upper classes) that riots tended to occur. And even when they did occur these riots did not, as the upper classes sometimes feared, seek to overturn the entire social system, but sought instead a return to the status quo, which the masses knew and with which they were comfortable. I will then seek to explain one seeming disparity in my analysis, this being the fact that while there were only major riots in Mexico city in two out of the more than one hundred years under study, there were similar disturbances in eleven of the 101 years of English history which have been examined.
Social control in 18th century England, indeed throughout much of Medieval and Modern English History, was exercised by a group of hereditary, landed aristocracy over a much poorer group of land laborers. While maintaining seemingly distant relations, these groups were actually rather close, as far as objectives were concerned; by and large both groups wanted peace and prosperity for all concerned. More than that there was an historic bond between the landholders and those who worked the land, stretching back as far as the Middle Ages. Each group knew that it could not survive without the presence and cooperation of the other. And yet this relationship was by no means equal, as the landed class had significant power over, and very little accountability to the lower classes. However, this added power also brought on an added sense of responsibility, a noblesse oblige, which can be observed through the actions of the upper classes on behalf of the lower classes. This practice of the upper classes supporting the lower classes (often against the rising middle class which made both older classes uneasy) is especially clear when one looks the laws concerning a product absolutely essential to the continued functioning of society: bread. The upper classes recognized the poor’s reliance on bread as a staple and enacted a number of laws designed to keep this necessity available and affordable for the lowest classes. To this end E.P. Thompson states that “for most of the eighteenth century the middleman remained legally suspect, and his operations were, in theory, severely restricted.” While this statement implies that there were cases in which the middle men were able to make money at the expense of the poor, there is ample evidence that the upper classes would act to rectify any imbalances which were brought to their attention, or permit the lower classes ample leeway to deal with the problem themselves.
And even in cases where a riot was “necessary” in order to rectify the grievances of the lower classes, their actions were never intended to result in a long-term change in government but simply sought to restore their conception of the social order. Indeed both the upper and lower classes recognized that riots were not desirable and ended up causing problems for all levels of society. All involved preferred to settle disputes before they became riots, but given their position in the social system the riot, or at least the threat of riot, was a necessary and recognized recourse for the lowest classes.
The social relations of Mexico City between during the period from roughly 1620 to 1720, came under a similar hierarchical structure. While a strong case could be made for the casta model of social organization or for a more highly complex model, I believe that Mexican society at this time more or less reflected the gente decente/plebian model. Mexican Society could thus largely be divided into two groups, the lower class composed of the castas and the poor Spanish, and upper, ruling class composed entirely of wealthy Spanish. This model recognized the prevailing social truth of the period; as Cope writes “all elites were Spaniards, but not all Spaniards were members of the elite.” The methods of social control utilized by the elite Spaniards were largely ones of familiarity and mutual (yet again staunchly unequal) interdependence. The elite Spaniards lived side by side with the castas, and dealt with them personally on a daily basis. The lower classes depended on the elite for work and were in turn depended on as workers. And while such a labor system tended to evolve along paternalistic lines, the personal interaction created both security for and a sense of responsibility among the elite. The castas were much less likely to rebel against their specific benefactor whom they had constant personal relations with, than against an abstract and distant group of elites. And the elite would often go to bat for their dependents in conflicts with other elite Spaniards, one reason why the castas might tend to view their higher-class contact as a benefactor rather than an enemy. Thus for both personal and economic reasons it was in everyone’s best interest to prevent social discord and the riots that could result from it. And, as in England, even in the event that a riot did occur, it was enacted with the intent of addressing specific and temporary grievances rather than with drastically reforming the existing order.
Having established the presence of seemingly secure social systems in both England and Mexico, and having established that in neither case do either upper or lower classes truly desire a riot, we must now ask ourselves why such riots appear to have occurred with such greater frequency England than in Mexico? While obvious solutions might lie in the larger population or later date of study in England, both of these are red herrings. The answer, in fact, lies in communication or a lack there-of. While cultivating good relations and preventing situations in which the lower classes might be moved to unrest were policies practiced by the upper classes in both instances, there existed in Mexico another method of social control which was largely absent in England: direct communication between the classes. In Mexico, unlike in England, there existed “channels of communication that acted as a safety valve for plebian discontent.” In instances when these channels of communication were temporarily shut down for whatever reason, such as in 1692, the Mexican crowd lacked any other way of displaying their discontent short of actual riot. As there never existed any similar process of direct communication between the English upper and lower classes, in instances where the typical social order was weakened the English masses had no other recourse than riot. Thusly, while the anti-riot sentiment among both English and Mexican society seems comparable, the apparatus for preventing such riots in Mexico contained an additional, often invaluable, mechanism for maintaining social accord which English society lacked.
While riots did occur in both 17th century Mexico City and 18th century England, in no case where these revolts against the prevailing social order. Indeed they were a way for the lower classes to draw attention to and hopefully gain resolution of certain specific grievances. Riots were not destructive or revolutionary in intent, even if seemingly so in action, but where, to paraphrase Sun Tzu, simply the continuation of social politics by other means. While much more infrequent and negatively looked upon by the Spaniards in Mexico City (possibly because of the alternate avenue of direct communication available to the Mexicans) than in England, social unrest was a fact of life in both societies. Yet, for the most part, when full-fledged riots did take place they burnt out quickly, with the lower classes neither gaining not desiring any substantive changes in the social order. When revolts occurred they were reflections of the lower classes’ desire to gain back something they felt they had lost, instead of to gain something that they had never had. And this seeming contentment was in a large part the result of a system of social control in which both parties recognized the value of their complements, and were generally satisfied that the social and political relations which they maintained would prevent most major problems from occurring and would provide a remedy in the such cases where problems did occur.