RGacky3
5th December 2011, 11:17
Agriculture now, is not very profitable any more, for basically the reasons of the tendancy for the rate of profit to fall. (http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/papers/AAE-SASA.htm)
From the article
Over most of the past century, profits from farming have gone primarily to those who found ways to reduce costs first and expand production the fastest. However, each new round of cost cutting technology has resulted in increased production and lower prices, erasing initial profitability. Late adopters have been motivated by survival rather than profitability and chronically declining prices have forced the laggards out of business. A relentless, never-ending search for new sources of profits has been a necessity of survival.
http://www.cfa-fca.ca/upload/nat_sym_a_mussell.pdf
Page 13 shows the profit basically constantly falling, although page 15 shows the average assets per farm rising (as would be expected with Marxian analysis as industry consolidates and capital/labor ratio goes up).
So the lack of profitability is made up for in farm subsidies, without which farms would die out until food prices rise to a point where it is profitable again, which would cause major starvation for people who can't afford the new inflated prices.
Also although overall farm subsidies have basically stayed the same, or even in some cases slightly dropped. http://www.ewg.org/agmag/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/table4.png
Large patments to large farms has gone up
http://www.heritage.org/static/reportimages/0CAFD013DDAC870F2266436EDE786024.gif
Now why is this the future of manufacturing and services, well, agriculture, manufacturing and human services (meaning everything from plumbing, to massages to engineering) are commodity production, unlike distribution (merchant capital), or finance (finance capital). Meaning these things eventually fall to the tendancy for the rate of profit to fall (unless other factors count that out), manufacturing has already been hit majorly by this, but can still be basically part of the market capitalist system, Agriculture has plummeted to a point to where it cannot, agriculture as a free market capitalist industry does'nt exist anymore, its on government life support.
Manufacturing will soon suffer the same fate, and eventually the service industry as well, untill you basically have the financial industry running Capitalism and the state trying to hold up capitalism as best it can.
Agricutulture, is the future of Capitalism, Capitalism is a system in slow collapse, and as it advances, it shoots itself in the foot, like agriculture, it grows and advances to a point to where it cannot function anymore as a market capitalist industry, thats the paradox of capitalism.
Theres more that can be said about this, such as the dispossesion of substinance farmers so as to widen the agriculture market, or the trade laws trying desperatly to keep it profitable, or the wiping out of community farming so that a market opens up. But I think you guys get the point.
From the article
Over most of the past century, profits from farming have gone primarily to those who found ways to reduce costs first and expand production the fastest. However, each new round of cost cutting technology has resulted in increased production and lower prices, erasing initial profitability. Late adopters have been motivated by survival rather than profitability and chronically declining prices have forced the laggards out of business. A relentless, never-ending search for new sources of profits has been a necessity of survival.
http://www.cfa-fca.ca/upload/nat_sym_a_mussell.pdf
Page 13 shows the profit basically constantly falling, although page 15 shows the average assets per farm rising (as would be expected with Marxian analysis as industry consolidates and capital/labor ratio goes up).
So the lack of profitability is made up for in farm subsidies, without which farms would die out until food prices rise to a point where it is profitable again, which would cause major starvation for people who can't afford the new inflated prices.
Also although overall farm subsidies have basically stayed the same, or even in some cases slightly dropped. http://www.ewg.org/agmag/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/table4.png
Large patments to large farms has gone up
http://www.heritage.org/static/reportimages/0CAFD013DDAC870F2266436EDE786024.gif
Now why is this the future of manufacturing and services, well, agriculture, manufacturing and human services (meaning everything from plumbing, to massages to engineering) are commodity production, unlike distribution (merchant capital), or finance (finance capital). Meaning these things eventually fall to the tendancy for the rate of profit to fall (unless other factors count that out), manufacturing has already been hit majorly by this, but can still be basically part of the market capitalist system, Agriculture has plummeted to a point to where it cannot, agriculture as a free market capitalist industry does'nt exist anymore, its on government life support.
Manufacturing will soon suffer the same fate, and eventually the service industry as well, untill you basically have the financial industry running Capitalism and the state trying to hold up capitalism as best it can.
Agricutulture, is the future of Capitalism, Capitalism is a system in slow collapse, and as it advances, it shoots itself in the foot, like agriculture, it grows and advances to a point to where it cannot function anymore as a market capitalist industry, thats the paradox of capitalism.
Theres more that can be said about this, such as the dispossesion of substinance farmers so as to widen the agriculture market, or the trade laws trying desperatly to keep it profitable, or the wiping out of community farming so that a market opens up. But I think you guys get the point.