Agriculture, class, and the cost of food: What do we think about the Industrial Revolution?

Doug Boucherdboucher@ucsusa.org

“The Truth is the Whole” Symposium

Harvard School of Public Health, 22 May 2015

Two quotes to start out:

Zhou Enlai, Premier of China, 1972:

Q. “How do you assess the impact of the French Revolution?”

A. “Too soon to tell!”

(probably apocryphal, misunderstood and/or mistranslated)

Theodore Roszak, 2001

“We ought to begin recognizing longevity as the greatest collective benefit yet to emerge from the Industrial Revolution.”

(in The Longevity Revolution)

What I’ll try to do today:

Defend industrial agriculture

What I’ll try to do today:

Defend

(the socialist potential, not the capitalist reality, of)

industrial agriculture

What I won’t do today: Make fun of foodies

(see Portlandia, Prairie Home Companion, New Yorker cartoons, etc., for this)

Use the word “Luddite”

(Unfair to the working-class machine-breakers of the early 1800s)

Two things to note about gentle, thought-intensive technology

It’s technology – the embodiment of scientific thought in material and social reality

It’s thought-intensive, not labor-intensive

The Industrial Revolution, according to Marx and the Marxist tradition:

Was historically progressiveLed to a great increase in the productive capacity of

society, simultaneously making possible the reduction of work time and the improvement of the working class’ standard of living;

Produced a wide diffusion of knowledge, both technical and cultural, among the broad mass of the population;

By bringing workers together, made it possible to build strong working-class organizations such as trade unions and political parties;

Made socialism possible

Socialism is necessary to realize the full potential of the Industrial Revolution for all of humanity, not just the ruling class

“a sharing of life’s glories, bread and roses, bread and roses”

Industrialization of the food systemhas greatly reduced the socially necessary labor time to produce our daily bread

Productivity and the cost of food: a class issue

A common argument: industrial agriculture conceals the real cost of food – to the environment, to communities, to workers and to our health

Thus, “we should pay more for our food”

But raising the price of food, means that “we” pay regressively – the rich pay the least, the poor pay the most

The most important elements of the Industrial Revolution for agriculture:

MechanizationIrrigationRailroadsTruckingShippingRefrigerationGrain storageRural electrificationThe scientific understanding of nature

A thought experiment: apply the concept of “Industrial Agriculture” to other sectors

Industrial transportation

Industrial housing

Industrial mining

Industrial furniture

Industrial entertainment

Industrial communication

Industrial education

Industrial science

Why is agriculture seen differently?

“Agrarian Romanticism”Exemplified by:

William Wordsworth

Henry Thoreau

Ralph Borsodi (1929) This Ugly Civilization

“Twelve Southerners” (1931) I’ll Take My Stand

E.F. Schumacher

Wendell Berry

Michael Pollan

And nearly every poet in every language for the past two centuries

Analyses of Agrarian Romanticism:Leo Marx (1964) The Machine in the Garden

David Danbom (1991) Romantic agrarianism in twentieth-century America. Agricultural History 65:1-12

Julie Guthman (2004, 2nd edition 2014) Agrarian Dreams

Maggie Gray (2013) Labor and the Locavore

Underlying beliefs of Agrarian Romanticism:

Nature is ontologically different from modern society

Thus industry should not be allowed into the productive sectors closest to nature:

Agriculture

Forestry

Fisheries

and formerly, Mining (Carolyn Merchant, 1980, The Death of Nature)

Conclusion

Perhaps the fundamental problem with twenty-first century agriculture is not that it’s industrial, but that it’s capitalist

Thank you!

And heartfelt thanks to Dick Levins for many decades of inspiration to us all

Compared to industry, the status of workers in agriculture is worse in nearly every way:

Lower wagesLonger work daysLess or no right to social insuranceLess occupational safety and health protectionMore unstable and insecure jobsHigher accident ratesHigher risk of dying on the jobLack of basic social norms – e.g. child labor laws

This is true not only in the U.S. today, but has been in nearly every country for at least two centuries