Recently, I read
an interesting op-ed in the local newspaper asserting that there is a
huge opportunity for local agriculture with the decline of export crops
(essentially, plantation agriculture).
The comments were interesting, ranging from enthusiasm to skepticism.
It
occurred to me that the debaters talked past one another because they
were discussing different types of economy without realizing it. They
each had valid points, but their intellectual reference points were
implicit.
There are at least three kinds of economy being discussed in that particular debate.
1)
Surplus economy.
The modern market economy system focuses on forms of production and
exchange that produce surpluses (the bigger the surplus, the better).
This is actually quite recent. The history of the human species prior to
the Agricultural Revolution is generally one of subsistence. The focus
on subsistence economies, primarily focused on hunting and gathering, is
partly based on necessity, especially in a society with a 'stone age'
technology. But it is also ideological, as surplus economies lead
rapidly to social hierarchies and centralization.
One example of
an ideological reaction against surplus economies might be the
'potlatch' gift-giving feasts among Pacific Northwest indigenous
peoples. Some anthropologists have theorized that in the highly
productive salmon-fishing economies of the region, elaborate and
extravagant gift giving is a way of equalizing social power and wealth
while conferring status on the giver.
Similarly, in the legends
of the Australian aboriginal peoples of the northern coasts, there are
stories of how their region was once settled by agricultural peoples
from Asia. Despite the good rapport they had with these settlers, the
aboriginals explained to the settlers that the kind of economies that
the settlers engaged in posed a danger to the aboriginal way of life;
subsequently, according to legend, the aboriginals harassed the settlers
until they left.
Surplus economies are therefore not
necessarily desired in all cultures for ideological reasons. In fact, in
some respects, one also finds this sentiment in American history with
the Jeffersonian ideal of the educated, independent yeoman farmer as the
ideal citizen of a republic. (Jefferson would not approve at all of
modern corporate agriculture's displacement of family farms, although
economies of scale may be vastly more productive in making food cheap.)
But for those who do want a surplus economy, this represents for them a way of bringing money into an economy from outside.
2.
Support economy.
Much of the economy, perhaps most of it, is not composed of activities
that create vast surpluses locally. Much of the economy is subsidiary,
and based maintenance. Think of grocery stores, gas stations,
physicians, attorneys, auto mechanics, real estate, etc. (The real money
to be made in the California gold rush was not by miners, but by
traders who supplied the miners. So the support economy can sometimes be
more reliably lucrative at the individual level than is the primary
surplus economy that is generating wealth, but not evenly distributing
that wealth.) These activities are secondary, in a sense, and based
around a surplus economy. For example, the US has largely
deindustrialized,
and industrial capitalism has been replaced by finance capitalism. In
New York City, in particular, the society has re-oriented itself to this
new source of surplus (Wall Street).
Support economies would tend to keep money in the local economy.
3.
Colonial economy.
The nature of a colonial economy is that raw materials are exported
from the economy, processed into manufactured goods, and then
re-imported back into the colonies for sale. People in the colonies are
forced by law, in a sense, to buy their own stuff. That was true in the
13 British colonies in North America, and it was also true in
British-ruled India (the flag of India has a spinning wheel at its
center, an anti-colonial statement that Indians can weave their own
clothes). What is interesting today is that the US, no longer
industrialized, is not a classic colonial power. Rather, Germany and
China fit the classic model of economic colonial powers.
Colonial economies tend to export resources and money. Infrastructure built by the colonial power is meant to hasten this process (although this may be supported locally and be done in good will by the colonists, and at some cost to themselves).
Back to the topic at hand: local agriculture.
Those
who are arguing for local agriculture as a replacement for corporate
agriculture are implying that corporate agriculture is really a colonial
economy. In fact, that would seem to be the case widely in the US in
some respects (e.g., it was reported that two-thirds of agricultural
workers in California live below the poverty level, and that farmers in
general are completely dictated to by banks, agriculture companies and
the government in terms of what they can grow and how they grow it). These advocates seem to view the potential for local agriculture as a shift to a support role for agriculture that would keep money in the economy.
Conversely,
those who criticize the idea of local agriculture as a replacement for
corporate agriculture see corporate agriculture as a surplus economy
that brings money in to the local economy, as opposed to mere
subsistence economics. In fact, if the American farmer today were to
turn their back on the banks and the federal government and the likes of
Monsanto and Hormel, the chances are that their operations would simply
collapse. They would become gardeners, not local farmers (and the price
of food would rise nationally).
It seems to me that this is an empirical matter for scholars and journalists to pursue on a case-by-case basis.
