Competition, Cooperation, and the Folk Society

Critiques based on Redfield's analysis of peasant communities imply that societies with the characteristics of his ideal folk society do not exist. This paper argues that Tusik, the most isolated of the communities in Redfield's multi-community study in Yucatan, is a folk society in Redfield's sense and compares Tusik with Chan Kom, a peasant village in the same study. Although differences between them in internal social cohesion cannot be adequately explained by the degree of relative isolation from the city, as Redfield argued, they can be so explained by the focus of aggressive competition, which can in turn be related to aspects of social organization. It is concluded that societies with the characteristics of Redfield's folk society are primitive, unstratified, segmentary societies, differing as a class from stratified societies, of which peasants are a part.