Is land reform obsolete?

[MarxSchmarx]

One of the big promises of "land reform" is that it is a direct form of wealth transfer from the parasites to the rural farm workers. As such, it is still a key demand of the left in many agricultural countries.

However, economies of scale operate in agriculture, where mass collectivization, or at least the formation of peasant coops, makes more sense.

Does land reform, understood as breaking up the land of large landholders and giving parcels thereof to farm workers, still make sense?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ No, it does NOT:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/kautsky-bolshevik-mistake-t59382/index.html

-ite[/b] Severian (who practically dared to call this revolutionary Marxist a "Stalinist" :glare: ), I criticized BOTH the revolutionary Marxist Lenin and the grossly revisionist "Comrade" Stalin for considering mere politics over the need for economic transformation. Lenin stole the SR's land reform platform to win peasant support, and "Comrade" Stalin compromised by settling for [i]kolkhozization and along the lines of the artel. It took who the "Marxist-Leninists" call the "revisionists" to set the agricultural house in order.]

Sovkhozization, not kolkhozization, takes advantage of economies of scale. This is one of the reasons behind my "proletocratic multi-economy" argument; we can't risk food shortages as a result of either implementing labour-time economics right there and then for agriculture (unlike in other economic sectors) or taking steps towards a petit-bourgeois "utopia" (where everyone is an "owner" acting for his own interests and where the income differences aren't that huge), and surpluses need to be extracted for the sake of "proletocratic primitive accumulation." Sovkhozization, as part of the "proletocratic-capitalist" strategy, lays the groundwork for future socialization.

[Hence I have a soft spot for the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. He was a former sovkhoz "red director."]

[BIG BROTHER]

I would say no, but this type of reforms are really popular in agricultural contries. And is always tempting to re-distribute land in order to get support from the farmers.

[Vargha Poralli]

One of the big promises of "land reform" is that it is a direct form of wealth transfer from the parasites to the rural farm workers. As such, it is still a key demand of the left in many agricultural countries.

However, economies of scale operate in agriculture, where mass collectivization, or at least the formation of peasant coops, makes more sense.

Does land reform, understood as breaking up the land of large landholders and giving parcels thereof to farm workers, still make sense?

Yes it not only makes sense but also a drastic necessity in the face of Economic Problems that we face today.

For example in India during the final years of the British rule and after Independence Land Reforms are started but was carried out in a really slow pace. The Landlords had a lot of influence in the Congress and other political circles and cunningly manipulated the Land Reforms to safe guard their intrest .In the end a large numbre of forest lands were distributd to the lanless peasants which did not help them much and also very much damaged the ecology.


However, economies of scale operate in agriculture, where mass collectivization, or at least the formation of peasant coops, makes more sense

Well that should happen. But it cannot be forced on the people rather formed by the Toilers on the land themselves voluntarily.


In the above, in spite of repeated "criticism" by the sectarian Trotsky-ite Severian (who practically dared to call this revolutionary Marxist a "Stalinist" ), I criticized BOTH the revolutionary Marxist Lenin and the grossly revisionist "Comrade" Stalin for considering mere politics over the need for economic transformation. Lenin stole the SR's land reform platform to win peasant support,

I don't think he called you a stlinist but criticised your view as bureaucratic. And political consideration is needed in Communism still we cannot just consider economic transformation alone as prime importance.

[BuyOurEverything]

Well that should happen. But it cannot be forced on the people rather formed by the Toilers on the land themselves voluntarily.This.

It really depends on the situation, you can't just come up with what you think is the "best" theory and universally apply it, without regard to the specific conditions on the ground and the wishes of the people. In some cases, specifically in more backwards modes of production, land reform makes sense. In more developed agricultural systems, collectivization works. That was the case in Cuba, where the sugar cane workers were already proletarianized, and wanted collectivization, better pay, and better conditions, rather than their own little piece of land.

Rolling the tanks in to force an "ideologically pure" but unpopular solution just serves to needlessly antagonize the peasantry, decimate your agriculture sector, and is also distinctly un-Marxist.

Also, it depends on the relative power of the revolution at whatever point you're at. Sure, if you have an armed, politically conscious working class and peasantry who already controls the country and has kicked out the bourgeoisie, collectivization of entire estates is feasible. But if the revolution is relatively weak or just beginning, taking non-utilized land from large estates with indemnity can be feasible, while just siezing the whole thing might not be. You redistribute wealth, while winning the support of the peasants and organizing and politisizing them at the same time. That's what Arbenz was doing in Guatemala and it worked great, before the US came in.

[MarxSchmarx]

I agree with JR that the collectivization of agricultural today seems like a prerequisite to transition to socialism. Large-scale industrial agriculture is so widespread and dominant today, that land reform seems almost counter-productive.

The gist of the above three posts seems to be that land reform is an effective way to build support in agricultural areas initially. But is it sustainable? And is it the only (or even most important) promise we should make to agricultural workers?

Land reform, understood as chopping up and redistributing the land to hitherto landless peasants, still seems just that: a reform under the current regime. Sure, these people have to "find their own solutions". But is delivering what is ultimately a non-solution that happens to be popular really the right way to go? It strikes me, in this day and age, as a particularly unproductive use of human labor. There must be an alternative to chopping up land into little holdings and forced collectivization. Can't we be more creative in our demands?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ You need to be explicitly clear on what type of collectivization you're talking about (which is why I didn't use that word in my post above). There were/are two distinct types, one of which I explicitly rejected on the basis of this: What motive will the collective farm "owners" have for working "their" farm and continuing to "sell" to the state after meeting the basic quota?

With the other type, at least they're paid wages and you won't have to worry about setting up private plots, since it is NOT "their" farm, and all produce would belong to the state. :)

[MarxSchmarx]

You need to be explicitly clear on what type of collectivization you're talking about (which is why I didn't use that word in my post above).Sure. There is much to learn from errors in the Soviet experience, but don't you think even the limitations of kolkhozes had more to do with government purchasings and managerial issues and less with collectivization per se? Either kind of collectivization, even one organized around coops, gets us closer to socialism than giving agricultural workers small plots of land to do with as they see fit.

[Delirium]

Land reform and redistrubution is still a demand of many indigenous and campesino groups throught the global south. Just and colonial powers used slavery in the plantation system, multinationals use wage slavery in the modern industrial farm. By forcing small farmers off thier land and into the cities they provide cheap labor for capitalists and also destroy local and regional economies.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Sure. There is much to learn from errors in the Soviet experience, but don't you think even the limitations of kolkhozes had more to do with government purchasings and managerial issues and less with collectivization per se? Either kind of collectivization, even one organized around coops, gets us closer to socialism than giving agricultural workers small plots of land to do with as they see fit.

Sure.

Here's a OI thread on the Bolivian situation:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/bolivia-seeks-charges-t76462/index.html

However, as for the more voluntary coops (and by this I am assuming you're referring more to the kibbutz model and excluding large coop agribusinesses), they still do not overcome economies of scale that sovkhozy provide with ease. :(

I'm not sure how coop agribusinesses (the problem with these is that they're still private property, albeit of a coop type, and not social property) would be handled in terms of state quotas, related prices, and prices for surpluses (I don't want to see coop agribusinesses act merely like a coop version of kulaks, profiteering from urban centers). :(

[cyu]

I'd say everyone who wants to work in agriculture has a right to land, and then it would be up to them whether they want to have full control of a small piece or to take their small piece and join a larger democratic organization.

If other people think joining an organization is more efficient, then it would be their job to convince the small farmers to join up, but they wouldn't have the right to force the small farmers to join up.

Part of the theory of anarchism is the protection of minorities. If the minority in a vote loses, they are not forced to accept the decision of the majority (as long as their actions aren't harming the majority). The minority is free to disassociate, and form their own organization. A small farm is the basic unit of organization. If the guy is just anti-social, cantankerous, and wants to be left alone, then he has that freedom. [Which isn't to say being anti-social is necessarily encouraged, but if you can't convince a few stragglers to be otherwise, and he isn't really hurting anybody, then leave him be.]

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'd say everyone who wants to work in agriculture has a right to land

^^^ Uh, that's de facto privatization of land. :glare:

Sorry, but this is exactly why I favour very, very state-capitalist measures in regards to land: expropriate all the land owned by the agribusinesses AND the reactionary "small farmers" (let's face it, "small farmers" in the developed world have expired in terms of revolutionary potential, and the whole world is capitalist enough for the proletariat to "screw" Third-World peasants over), and have very hierarchical state agri-enterprises (by anarchist standards) oversee the immediate post-revolution production:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/anarchism-and-anti-t76849/index.html


3) Non-market state "capitalism" of a rather STALINIST type, with wage-paid labour brigades per Trotsky's suggestion, which would mean a HUGE standing "army" coordinated by GOSSTROY (construction) and GOSPLAN (which would take care of the agricultural sovkhozization process);




Part of the theory of anarchism is the protection of minorities.

Yeah: let's protect ousted bourgeois elements from having to account for their past exploitative deeds, thus completely ignoring the post-revolution aggravation of the class struggle along with the transition to socialism. :rolleyes:

[cyu]

Uh, that's de facto privatization of land.


There's a difference between handing over control of all the land to a capitalist who then exploits the farmers, and handing over control of all the land to the farmers. You have to remember that farmers have to agree to your proposals if you want them on your side. If you're going to force them into a structure they have no say over, then they'll side with the capitalists, and your revolution will never get off the ground.


Yeah: let's protect ousted bourgeois elements from having to account for their past exploitative deeds, thus completely ignoring the post-revolution aggravation of the class struggle along with the transition to socialism.
I'm not sure what you mean by the second part of your sentence, but I'll deal with the first. Let's say the revolution has already succeeded. What then do you propose we do with the people who used to be capitalists? Do they all deserve punishment? What kind of punishment? Personally, the level of punishment (or if they are punished at all) is not as important as succeeding in the revolution itself. If you threaten capitalists with death, then they'll fight all the harder against revolution. If you can make them apathetic enough that they start to care less about whether the revolution happens or not, then that certainly means your revolution will have a better chance of success than if they were fighting you.

[Hyacinth]

The breakdown of the US GPD by sector yields agriculture only a 0.9% share (compared to 20.6% for industry, and 78.5% for the service sector; data from the CIA world factbook). Moreover, only 0.6% of the workforce is employed in farming, forestry, or fishing. In respect to this, land reform, of the sort proposed above, is indeed obsolete in advanced industrial nations. Agriculture has already largely been industrialized and consolidated, and the remaining small-to-medium scale farmers left don’t make up a great enough segment of the population to warrant, either economically or politically, to transfer land into their hands.

In developing nations, where agriculture makes up a more substantial portion of the GDP, and takes up a greater percentage of the workforce, politically it might be prudent to provide land reform provided that it is a popular demand among farmers (even, if, economically it wouldn’t make the most sense). But, that is a moot point, since I would think the prospects for a successful revolution are substantially lower in less developed nations.

[ckaihatsu]

In line with what Hyacinth is saying, I'd like to ask if land is even required at all anymore -- not only is the need for farmers at a minimum, but I'd imagine we could factory-ize much, if not all, farm / food production, using hydroponics.

I've heard hydroponics poo-pooed, but I'd imagine it'd be viable and very space-saving. Let people remain in the countryside, if they like, but make sure that everyone is supplied by local food factories....

Have a militant May Day, everyone!


Chris


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[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Cool concept!

Behind the food riots: a debate on how best to farm (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080510/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/fixing_food)


By DAVID KOOP, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 2 minutes ago

Sitting in a Mexico City office, dressed in a pressed white shirt, Gerardo Sanchez seems a world away from his herds of goats and fields of beans.

But he's no poster boy for the new world agricultural order, in which peasants are supposed to leave their unproductive farms and strive for middle-class prosperity while food production is left to agribusiness in the countries that farm most cheaply and efficiently.

Sanchez works for the National Campesino Federation, a lobbying group for small farmers that has been active lately in protests against the rising price of food, notably a doubling of the price of tortillas. Here, NAFTA and globalization are dirty words.

Around the world, governments are trying every play in their books to stave off food riots — sending troops to hand out food in slums, ordering sweeping wage increases, banning grain exports and suspending futures trading. The United States is promising millions in emergency food aid.

But many experts call these Band-Aid solutions, saying what's needed is a radical rethink of how the world gets its food.

However, they're deeply divided about which way to go.

Some would in effect reverse the fundamentals by investing massively in small farmers, instead of letting them sink in a free-trade world. That would be very different from what the U.S. has long been evangelizing — take uncompetitive food producers off the land and put them in new jobs with paychecks that would buy them cheap food, efficiently farmed.

Others argue that the problem is not that trade is too free, but that it should be freer. U.S. and European farm subsidies are bad enough, they say, and things will only worsen if the present crisis triggers more restrictions.

Those at the sharp end of rising prices feel like victims of a bait-and-switch maneuver — when they quit the land, they were promised food would get cheaper, and now it's costlier.

"Not only are farmers not growing food, but we are going hungry because we can't afford the foreign food that drove us off our farms," said Mario Aguila, 48, who left his farm in Oaxaca state because he could no longer support his family.

Aguila now sweeps floors in a Mexico City mall and marched in last year's protests against tortilla price rises.

The pain inflicted on Mexican farmers by NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, was supposed to be offset by cheap grains for consumers, said Jeff Faux of the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute. "But when the U.S. Congress realized the potential of ethanol, corn was diverted there and Mexico was left high and dry," Faux said. "The corn turned out to be not that cheap."

The campesino federation estimates 200,000 Mexicans a year have fled the countryside for the city or the United States since NAFTA was launched in 1994.

World Bank chief Robert Zoellick, a former U.S. trade representative, defended trade pacts and said they serve to lower world food prices, not cause them to increase.

"NAFTA is one of the reasons prices are not higher," Zoellick said Wednesday at a Mexico City news conference.

There are those who say it's not free trade that's to blame but the sudden seismic shift in the global economy — ballooning oil prices, a biofuel boom that is gobbling up farmland, and a voracious Chinese market for food. Get used to it, they say — the era of cheap food is over.

But Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, recalls that the last big food price increase, in the 1970s, was followed by agricultural advances known as the "green revolution" that hugely increased the supply and brought down costs, and "If we don't mess this up we can expect the same today."

However, he worries that U.S. and European Union farm subsidies and tariffs, plus grain export bans and taxes triggered by the latest crisis, will make things worse.

Meanwhile, rice alone has more than tripled in price since January. Corn, wheat and other staples also have soared beyond the ability of millions to pay for a healthy diet.

Some blame price inflation on speculative trading of futures — contracts to buy or sell grains, metals, oil and other commodities at a set price on a future date.

India on Thursday suspended futures trading in four major commodities, including soybean oil, chick peas and potatoes, in a bid to tame rising inflation driven largely by the soaring cost of food.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates 820 million people go hungry in the developing world, and Zoellick says the crisis could force as many as 100 million people deeper into poverty.

Despite calls for investment in farming, many governments seem stuck in crisis mode.

Deadly riots have broken out from Bangladesh to Egypt to Burkina Faso. In Haiti, they cost the prime minister his job. At least 34 countries have seen protests in recent months, according to the U.N.'s World Food Program.

"Rice fever" has led nations in Asia to restrict exports and subsidize locally grown rice. Some leaders in Latin America are subsidizing food or placing punitive export taxes on food commodities to control inflation.

So how does the world get out of this mess?

U.N. agencies recommend truly leveling the playing field by cutting subsidies to huge agricultural companies, ending export bans, lowering tariffs and increasing investment in small-scale agriculture, one farm at a time.

"This could be a window of opportunity for governments to relaunch the small-farming sector and traditional farming," said Fernando Soto, the FAO's policy chief for Latin America and the Caribbean.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says a "green revolution" in Africa, fueled by new techniques and agricultural investment, could double African food production in just a few years for "a relatively modest" $8 billion to $10 billion a year.

The U.S. is already the world's largest provider of food aid — $2.1 billion last year — and Bush has asked Congress to approve an extra $770 million in response to the crisis.

But the world can't donate itself out of this crisis, said Paul Polak, founder of International Development Enterprises, an aid organization that says it has helped 17 million small farmers escape poverty by selling them low-cost technology such as water-saving drip irrigation systems and foot-powered water pumps.

Polak says of the world's 525 million farms, 450 million are less than five acres, with the poorest working a single acre or less. Modern methods — especially in irrigation and crop rotation — won't work well there, he said.

"We need a revolution in small-plot agriculture to allow farmers to grow the food they need to eat and to grow high-value crops they can sell on the market to lift themselves out of poverty," Polak said.

Cowen says the idea is good, but points to Brazil, which has made great strides in strengthening its food security by allowing its farms to get larger and more corporate.

"Small farms," he says, "are a sign that your agriculture is very inefficient."

[ckaihatsu]

What's a cool concept?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Further development of hydroponics (based on the Civilization games, they're cute farm domes - then there are industrial farms, aquaculture buildings, and greenhouses) :)

[ckaihatsu]

Yeah!

I guess that means we already have a user interface for the administration of the future communist society...!


The article you posted brings to mind two things:

- That besides seeing its dollar-currency hegemony slip away, the U.S. is now losing its grip on being the breadbasket daddy to the world.

- That the capitalist quest for profits / hegemony is at such a desperate state that they're ballooning the least sexy market of all -- food. So here we are, in the freaking 21st century, 10 centuries after the advent of crop rotation, and the capitalist system can't get *food production* right? Over a billion people can't even *eat right* because of the economic system??? People shouldn't *have* to spend a moment of their lives on food production for themselves -- by now it should be in a delivery system that's as easy as picking up the mail...!

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Sorry for the belated bump, comrade, but that can change if the US is more aggressive in squeezing out its reactionary small farmers and promoting agribusinesses (which are maligned by the Democ-RATS right now).

[ckaihatsu]

^^^ Sorry for the belated bump, comrade, but that can change if the US is more aggressive in squeezing out its reactionary small farmers and promoting agribusinesses (which are maligned by the Democ-RATS right now).


*What* can change, Jacob? If I didn't know better, it almost sounds like you're promoting national development -- are you advocating socialism through beefed-up corporatism?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ What can change? "That besides seeing its dollar-currency hegemony slip away, the U.S. is now losing its grip on being the breadbasket daddy to the world." I merely stated above that the US can turn on the production tap and be a "breadbasket daddy" if it didn't continue to subsidize the small farmers in their competition with the agribusinesses.

Unfortunately, as more and more agribusinesses dominate the American agricultural landscape, we'll see more and more poor peasants in the Third World being driven out of business and into more suicides (like in India) - just because they simply cannot compete with even more food production that will result from the American small farmers being squeezed out. :(

As for corporatism, that's just a trend in US government policy: favour the big bourgeoisie over the petit-bourgeoisie. Regardless of the US government's actions, any socialist "government" that comes into power must necessarily expropriate both the agribusinesses and the small farms.

[cyu]

any socialist "government" that comes into power must necessarily expropriate both the agribusinesses and the small farms.


Desperate times call for desperate measures. However, I don't think I'm as pessimistic as you. Personally, I don't think it will ever come to the point where all farming *has* to be on a mass scale, or people will starve. (It's true this happens under capitalism, but I attribate that to improper division of resources, rather than to the scale of farming).

In a non-capitalist system, I think there will be plenty of food to go around. Even if small-scale farming is less inefficient, I think the world food supply could be satisfied with some large-scale farms, and then the rest of the land could be left for people to do whatever they want - whether it's small-scale farming, parks, reserves, etc etc.

[ckaihatsu]

^^^ What can change? "That besides seeing its dollar-currency hegemony slip away, the U.S. is now losing its grip on being the breadbasket daddy to the world." I merely stated above that the US can turn on the production tap and be a "breadbasket daddy" if it didn't continue to subsidize the small farmers in their competition with the agribusinesses.

Unfortunately, as more and more agribusinesses dominate the American agricultural landscape, we'll see more and more poor peasants in the Third World being driven out of business and into more suicides (like in India) - just because they simply cannot compete with even more food production that will result from the American small farmers being squeezed out. :(

As for corporatism, that's just a trend in US government policy: favour the big bourgeoisie over the petit-bourgeoisie. Regardless of the US government's actions, any socialist "government" that comes into power must necessarily expropriate both the agribusinesses and the small farms.


Yes, I agree entirely with you here, Jacob.



Desperate times call for desperate measures.


Cyu, this isn't about desperation -- I see that you're an anarchist, so our differences will be based on fundamental political differences.

A working class that comes to power must necessarily take over all industrial and agricultural production. This is strictly political, so that there is no question as to where the authority for labor and production comes from.



However, I don't think I'm as pessimistic as you. Personally, I don't think it will ever come to the point where all farming *has* to be on a mass scale, or people will starve.


Logistically you may be right, but I'd like to press the case and ask if a liberated working class really *should* continue to do any sort of farming. I'm not saying that everyone should necessarily live in cities, but rather that centralized production would automate food production to the point where spending any portion of one's life doing farming would be considered nothing more than a hobby of choice, like gardening.



(It's true this happens under capitalism, but I attribate that to improper division of resources, rather than to the scale of farming).


I don't see the distinction here, cyu. As far as I can tell the improper division of resources is synonymous with the scale of farming. With larger industrial or agricultural organization comes economies of scale, which provides more efficient uses of resources.



In a non-capitalist system, I think there will be plenty of food to go around. Even if small-scale farming is less inefficient, I think the world food supply could be satisfied with some large-scale farms, and then the rest of the land could be left for people to do whatever they want - whether it's small-scale farming, parks, reserves, etc etc.


I agree here, with the stipulation that everyone should be provided with a basic staple of a variety of good, healthy food, regardless. Any personal, small-scale farming would *have* to be in addition to this, so that it is in effect, a hobby, with no actual dependence on it.

[cyu]

A working class that comes to power must necessarily take over all industrial and agricultural production. This is strictly political, so that there is no question as to where the authority for labor and production comes from.


I have no problem with that, but it will also be true that even if everyone who works for a living is in agreement that they should control production, they may disagree on other issues. Maybe 33% want to do things one way, 33% want to do it another way, and the rest want to do things yet some other way. The anarchist solution isn't to get them to all vote and then everyone follows the vote - instead anarchists would allow each faction to go their own way and do what they feel is right.

This extends down to the individual level too. Some people are extroverted, some are introverted. The most introverted ones may not want to deal with others at all. Will you deny them the freedom to work alone, if that's what they prefer?


As far as I can tell the improper division of resources is synonymous with the scale of farming. With larger industrial or agricultural organization comes economies of scale, which provides more efficient uses of resources.

I'm not just talking about how farming is done. When I say improper division of resources, I'm also talking about, for example, the 400 crew members manning a rich man's mega-yacht - are those 400 people really contributing a lot to society? I would argue that society would be better off if all the people currently serving the wealthy were serving everyone else (including themselves) instead.

[ckaihatsu]

I have no problem with that, but it will also be true that even if everyone who works for a living is in agreement that they should control production, they may disagree on other issues. Maybe 33% want to do things one way, 33% want to do it another way, and the rest want to do things yet some other way. The anarchist solution isn't to get them to all vote and then everyone follows the vote - instead anarchists would allow each faction to go their own way and do what they feel is right.

This extends down to the individual level too. Some people are extroverted, some are introverted. The most introverted ones may not want to deal with others at all. Will you deny them the freedom to work alone, if that's what they prefer?


Being around revolutionary politics for awhile -- and in this discussion, as well -- I get the sense that Marxists / socialists tend to focus on general, macro-level plans, whereas anarchists tend to focus on ground-level, where-they're-at sorts of plans. It makes no difference to me, and of course, any revolutionary policy would not be solely up to me, anyway -- I can only address your points in general, theoretical terms. In actuality the international working class in revolt would form their own organizations of representation to hash out the particulars.

I'd imagine that workers would find labor that suits them individually and that which would also aid in the worldwide revolution against capitalism. Marxists like myself argue for a vanguard mostly so that an overall political direction can be formulated -- in a revolutionary period that party (with a continuous rotation of participation) would also take on the function of administration of labor, assets, and resources. Workers democracy -- in my understanding of it -- would match bottom-up, localized situations to more broad-ranging, general, extant human needs from what those numerous local situations could provide.

In periods of particular urgency -- say, in reconstructing society in present-day Burma ("Myanmar") or earthquake-ravaged China -- the administration may have to become more heavy-handed in assigning labor to adequately cover the pressing, outstanding needs, but for the most part I'd imagine that workers would have *more* freedom over choice of work than we do under the current wage-labor system.



I'm not just talking about how farming is done. When I say improper division of resources, I'm also talking about, for example, the 400 crew members manning a rich man's mega-yacht - are those 400 people really contributing a lot to society? I would argue that society would be better off if all the people currently serving the wealthy were serving everyone else (including themselves) instead.


Well, absolutely. Marxists and anarchists are all anti-capitalist, so there are no disagreements on the major points.

[cyu]

In periods of particular urgency -- say, in reconstructing society in present-day Burma ("Myanmar") or earthquake-ravaged China -- the administration may have to become more heavy-handed in assigning labor to adequately cover the pressing, outstanding needs


What kind of policies do you mean when you say "heavy-handed"? If some people are in need, anarchists wouldn't directly force others to produce for them. Some would encourage (and protect) those in need to take over resources they need for production. Other anarchists may just visit places where goods are being stored, and take them to help those in need. The idea is that those with lives at stake have a greater claim to resources than those who do not have lives at stake.

Well, our goals are similar anyway - I'm just offering another viewpoint on the means to achieve the goal.

[ckaihatsu]

What kind of policies do you mean when you say "heavy-handed"?


I mean to say that a worldwide workers revolution would most likely encounter some resistance, and so there would be a very real possibility that brigades would have to be formed to fight the capitalist military.

This would be the best example of a scenario where workers authority would be needed, subject to immediate rank-and-file recall, over masses of workers / workers' militias.



If some people are in need, anarchists wouldn't directly force others to produce for them.


Well, this is *very* problematic to me -- it is for this reason, and the reason above, that I am not an anarchist. Organization is needed beyond the level of volunteerism, both now and during a period of anti-capitalist uprisings.



Some would encourage (and protect) those in need to take over resources they need for production. Other anarchists may just visit places where goods are being stored, and take them to help those in need. The idea is that those with lives at stake have a greater claim to resources than those who do not have lives at stake.


I agree with this general ethos, but again, the question is whether that would be sufficient, especially in a period where mass working-class organization could very well be the decisive factor that beats the capitalists for good.



Well, our goals are similar anyway - I'm just offering another viewpoint on the means to achieve the goal.


Right -- the long-term goal of Marxists and anarchists has always been the same -- a world of communism / anarchism where volunteerism would be enabled as the best, and only, method of mass (or local) production. Unfortunately, that method is *not* currently enabled, due to the wastefulness and repression of capitalism, forcing most to have to sell their labor at a loss just to afford the barest of an existence.

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.monthlyreview.org/1003amin.htm


Modern capitalist agriculture—encompassing both rich, large-scale family farming and agribusiness corporations—is now engaged in a massive attack on third world peasant production. The green light for this was given at the November 2001 session of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Doha, Qatar. There are many victims of this attack—and most are third world peasants, who still make up half of humankind.

[...]

The ratio of the productivity of the most advanced capitalist segment of the world’s agriculture to the poorest, which was around 10 to 1 before 1940, is now approaching 2000 to 1! That means that productivity has progressed much more unequally in the area of agriculture and food production than in any other area. Simultaneously this evolution has led to the reduction of the relative prices of food products (in relation to other industrial and service products) to one fifth of what they were fifty years ago. The new agrarian question is the result of that unequal development.

[...]

One can imagine that the food brought to market by today’s three billion peasants, after they ensure their own subsistences, would instead be produced by twenty million new modern farmers. The conditions for the success of such an alternative would include: (1) the transfer of important pieces of good land to the new capitalist farmers (and these lands would have to be taken out of the hands of present peasant populations); (2) capital (to buy supplies and equipment); and (3) access to the consumer markets. Such farmers would indeed compete successfully with the billions of present peasants. But what would happen to those billions of people?

Under the circumstances, agreeing to the general principle of competition for agricultural products and foodstuffs, as imposed by WTO, means accepting the elimination of billions of noncompetitive producers within the short historic time of a few decades. What will become of these billions of humans beings, the majority of whom are already poor among the poor, who feed themselves with great difficulty. In fifty years’ time, industrial development, even in the fanciful hypothesis of a continued growth rate of 7 percent annually, could not absorb even one-third of this reserve.

[...]

The contention that capitalism has indeed solved the agrarian question in its developed centers has always been accepted by large sections of the left, an example being Karl Kautsky’s famous book, The Agrarian Question, written before the First World War. Soviet ideology inherited that view and on its basis undertook modernization through the Stalinist collectivization, with poor results. What was always overlooked was that capitalism, while it solved the question in its centers, did it through generating a gigantic agrarian question in the peripheries, which it can only solve through the genocide of half of humankind. Within the Marxist tradition only Maoism understood the magnitude of the challenge. Therefore, those who accused Maoism of a “peasant deviation” show by this very criticism that they lack the analytical capacity to understand imperialist capitalism, which they reduce to an abstract discourse on capitalism in general.

[ckaihatsu]

The contention that capitalism has indeed solved the agrarian question in its developed centers has always been accepted by large sections of the left, an example being Karl Kautsky’s famous book, The Agrarian Question, written before the First World War. Soviet ideology inherited that view and on its basis undertook modernization through the Stalinist collectivization, with poor results. What was always overlooked was that capitalism, while it solved the question in its centers, did it through generating a gigantic agrarian question in the peripheries, which it can only solve through the genocide of half of humankind. Within the Marxist tradition only Maoism understood the magnitude of the challenge. Therefore, those who accused Maoism of a “peasant deviation” show by this very criticism that they lack the analytical capacity to understand imperialist capitalism, which they reduce to an abstract discourse on capitalism in general.


This last paragraph sounds like utter bullshit -- in my understanding Maoism has looked *to* agrarian production (instead of industrial production) as the basis for revolution and socialism.

The rest of the excerpts are terrific, though -- thanks, Jacob.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ The Monthly Review has a mix of Trotskyist and Maoist sympathies, comrade. ;)

Both tendencies have one thing in common: they OPPOSE sovkhozization (even today's Trots pay Social-Democratic-style lip service to this, delaying it to the future). For all the "left opposition" provided by Trotsky and co, they were VERY "right-wing" on the agrarian question. The "Marxist-Leninist" center led by Stalin had, naturally, a centrist position (kolkhozization, and even then along the lines of the artel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivisation_in_the_USSR#The_crisis_of_1928)).

Sadly, nobody took a "left-wing" stance on the agrarian question. :(

[cyu]

Some would encourage (and protect) those in need to take over resources they need for production. Other anarchists may just visit places where goods are being stored, and take them to help those in need. The idea is that those with lives at stake have a greater claim to resources than those who do not have lives at stake.

I agree with this general ethos, but again, the question is whether that would be sufficient, especially in a period where mass working-class organization could very well be the decisive factor that beats the capitalists for good.


My comments were mainly about a post-capitalist world. As far as overthrowing capitalism in the first place, anarchists would protect any employees that want to assume democratic control over their companies. For some strange reason, the average person living in a capitalist "democracy" often isn't ready to accept the notion that if democracy for a government is good, then it should also be good for a company. While it sounds obvious, the level of pro-capitalist propanda will obviously need to be counter-acted before real changes in the general mindset can be overcome.

[ckaihatsu]

My comments were mainly about a post-capitalist world. As far as overthrowing capitalism in the first place, anarchists would protect any employees that want to assume democratic control over their companies. For some strange reason, the average person living in a capitalist "democracy" often isn't ready to accept the notion that if democracy for a government is good, then it should also be good for a company. While it sounds obvious, the level of pro-capitalist propanda will obviously need to be counter-acted before real changes in the general mindset can be overcome.


Yah! The freakiest part of it all is that the system doesn't even need to use any blatant, message-y kinds of propaganda to keep the status quo going -- incubating the consumerist mentality goes a long way, shaping people at the basest levels -- pleasure or pain -- pleasure being the acquisition of new stuff.

I've been coming across a fair amount of material that's critical of the (North) American consumerist lifestyle, and it's rather interesting.... The only problem is that the stuff I've seen comes from the conservative and liberal viewpoints, so they wind up advocating conservation at the consumer level, which is bullshit, of course. People (of the working class) should not have to go through the hassles of the market mechanism for procuring what they want out of the world / life. All this shit with the massive debt overhang is put squarely on the shoulders of the consumer / worker, instead of with the military / capital gains tax-break-getters / etc.

While people make nervous jokes about the price of gas we also know that modern society's entire infrastructure is based around the car, so who's realistically going to be volunteering to go without gas for the rest of us? Do we need a fucking Jesus Christ gas martyr to stay at home so that our driving "sins" may be forgiven?

This is why capitalism doesn't work -- why all the anxiety and stress over FUCKING GAS??? Jeeeezus, the infrastructure already exists -- why not just issue a freaking government card, like a library card, so that everyone can get the gas they need for the week?!!!!

Okay, so I'm a little off-topic here -- to get back on point, I'll just note that the value around assets is usually so drawn-out and diffuse -- not to mention leveraged and manipulated -- that the notion of private "ownership" is basically a joke.

People should just admit that we have a government- and bank-run bureaucracy which we like to call a market system, for old time's sake. It's kinda nostalgic that way.... The actual labor that went into creating those assets was so underpaid and done so long ago that workers should just blink their eyes a few times and begin to see those assets as about the same as mountains and rivers and trees, and figure out how to manage them *collectively* so that more people can benefit than they do now.... Why leave empty houses just sitting there once the quasi-owners fled from it, and the negative equity on it -- ?!


Chris



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[ckaihatsu]

^^^ The Monthly Review has a mix of Trotskyist and Maoist sympathies, comrade. ;)

Both tendencies have one thing in common: they OPPOSE sovkhozization (even today's Trots pay Social-Democratic-style lip service to this, delaying it to the future). For all the "left opposition" provided by Trotsky and co, they were VERY "right-wing" on the agrarian question. The "Marxist-Leninist" center led by Stalin had, naturally, a centrist position (kolkhozization, and even then along the lines of the artel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivisation_in_the_USSR#The_crisis_of_1928)).

Sadly, nobody took a "left-wing" stance on the agrarian question. :(


Yeah, goes to show you the politics of it all -- even revolutionaries may play politics when they're in the thick of it, huh? It is too bad, though -- theoretically, and especially with today's technology -- the farm itself should be obsoleted altogether so that no one is bound to it. As I mentioned earlier I'm sure we could do food production hydroponically, in factories, and have fine produce for an entire region.... That would cut down on transportation costs, too.... Who knows -- with genetic engineering we may even be able to grow steaks on their own without ever harming animals! Or perhaps we'll have a way to get all of our nutrition in caffeinated-water-like drinks.... At that point you'd have to watch a movie to see a farm!

[Die Neue Zeit]

Not really (I think):

Cuba's urban farming program a stunning success (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080608/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/farming_havana;_ylt=AjsgM37pzLiEaRaD4DksI_63IxIF)




By NIKO PRICE, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 3 minutes ago

For Miladis Bouza, the global food crisis arrived two decades ago. Now, her efforts to climb out of it could serve as a model for people around the world struggling to feed their families.

Bouza was a research biologist, living a solidly middle-class existence, when the collapse of the Soviet Union — and the halt of its subsidized food shipments to Cuba — effectively cut her government salary to $3 a month. Suddenly, a trip to the grocery store was out of reach.

So she quit her job, and under a program championed by then-Defense Minister Raul Castro, asked the government for the right to farm an overgrown, half-acre lot near her Havana home. Now, her husband tends rows of tomatoes, sweet potatoes and spinach, while Bouza, 48, sells the produce at a stall on a busy street.

Neighbors are happy with cheap vegetables fresh from the field. Bouza never lacks for fresh produce, and she pulls in between $100 to $250 a month — many times the average government salary of $19.

"All that money is mine," she said. "The only thing I have to buy is protein" — meat.

Cuba's urban farming program has been a stunning, and surprising, success. The farms, many of them on tiny plots like Bouza's, now supply much of Cuba's vegetables. They also provide 350,000 jobs nationwide with relatively high pay and have transformed eating habits in a nation accustomed to a less-than-ideal diet of rice and beans and canned goods from Eastern Europe.

From 1989-93, Cubans went from eating an average of 3,004 calories a day to only 2,323, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, as shelves emptied of the Soviet goods that made up two-thirds of Cuba's food. Today, they eat 3,547 calories a day — more than what the U.S. government recommends for American citizens.

"It's a really interesting model looking at what's possible in a nation that's 80 percent urban," said Catherine Murphy, a California sociologist who spent a decade studying farms in Havana. "It shows that cities can produce huge amounts of their own food, and you get all kinds of social and ecological benefits."

Of course, urban farms might not be such a success in a healthy, competitive economy.

As it is, productivity is low at Cuba's large, state-run farms where workers lack incentives. Government-supplied rations — mostly imported from the U.S. — provide such staples as rice, beans and cooking oil, but not fresh produce. Importers bring in only what central planners want, so the market doesn't correct for gaps. And since most land is owned by the state, developers are not competing for the vacant lots that can become plots for vegetables.

Still, experts say the basic idea behind urban farming has a lot of promise.

"It's land that otherwise would be sitting idle. It requires little or no transportation to get (produce) to market," said Bill Messina, an agricultural economist at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "It's good anyway you look at it."

And with fuel prices and food shortages causing unrest and hunger across the world, many say the Cuban model should spread.

"There are certain issues where we think Cuba has a lot to teach the world. Urban agriculture is one of them," said Beat Schmid, coordinator of Cuba programs for the charity Oxfam International.

Other countries have experimented with urban farming — Cuba's initial steps were modeled after a green belt surrounding Shanghai. But nowhere has urban farming been used so widely to transform the way a country feeds itself.

"As the global food crisis receives attention, this is something that we need to be looking at," Murphy said. "Havana is an unlikely, really successful model where no one would expect one to come from."

Now that Raul Castro is president, many expect him to expand the program he began as an experiment in the early 1990s.

One of the first plots he opened was the "organoponico" on Fifth Avenue and 44th Street in the ritzy Havana neighborhood of Miramar. The half-block farm — owned by a government agency — is surrounded by apartment buildings and houses, but also offices of foreign companies, a Spanish bank and the South African Embassy.

Long troughs brim with arugula, spinach, radishes and basil, and few of the 20,000 square feet are wasted.

One technician tends compost that serves as natural fertilizer, while another handles natural protection from pests, surrounding delicate spinach shoots with strong-smelling celery to ward off insects. Such measures have ecological benefits but were born of necessity: Neither commercial fertilizer nor herbicide is reliably available.

Three workers tend the crops and another three sell them from a brightly painted stall.

Key to the operation is something once unheard of in Cuba: 80 percent of the profits go straight to the workers' pockets, providing them an average of $71 a month.

"Those salaries are higher than doctors, than lawyers," said Roberto Perez, the 58-year-old agronomist who runs the farm. "The more they produce, the more they make. That's fundamental to get high productivity."

Customers say the farm has given them not only access to affordable food, but also a radical change in their cuisine.

"Nobody used to eat vegetables," said David Leon, 50, buying two pounds of Swiss chard. "People's nutrition has improved a lot. It's a lot healthier. And it tastes good."

[ckaihatsu]

Cool -- throw in some municipal wi-fi, and I'm there!

[Die Neue Zeit]

I wonder if there will be room for "organic" food production under sovkhozization. The food production problems right now relate to meeting demand from three sources:

1) Organic food consumption;
2) Biofuel production; and
3) Typical modern food consumption.

Would sovkhozization for #2 and #3 mean enough land to increase production for #1, even though we all know there isn't enough land on Earth to produce organic food for everyone? Also, what happens if the sovkhozization technology fails? Is it even applicable for producing organic food?

EDIT - CRAP:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1169575&postcount=20


Global warming is happening. There's no denying that. When I was gutting houses in the charred landscape of New Orleans, there was no doubt of that in my mind. When scientist after scientist points out that CO2 levels are rightly skyrocketing, we shouldn't be surprised for anything but a spike in temperature. There's a global drought on right now. This isn't coming out of thin air.

Organic farming is bunk. It's not efficient for what we need. However GMO crops aren't necessary either. Vertical farming provides a largely organic alternative to our problems, which can produce yields of massive proportions. Moreover it takes up very little space, allow us to free up farm land for recolonization by native ecosystems, which will help sequester a lot more carbon.

Vertical farming could be seen as fitting my sovkhozization scheme! :scared:




At that point you'd have to watch a movie to see a farm!

Comrade, with all this sovkhozization (including vertical farming under social ownership and control), I can just imagine students engaging in historical agriculture for their history projects on various Agricultural Revolutions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_Revolution) (so no, we wouldn't be limited to seeing historical farms through recorded visual media)! What a new spin on Maoist agricultural "education" for the masses! :lol: