Abstract
Does the proposal in Paul S. Adler’s, The 99 Percent Economy, and perhaps more importantly, does the underlying logic of the book, apply to agriculture as well as it might in other sectors, such as automaking and health care? The history and structure of United States agriculture suggests the possibility of an egalitarian agriculture of independent producers. Broadly social democratic reforms based on a tradition of agrarian populism that promotes independent household production—family farming—might be a better choice for agriculture for the near and middle term.
A central argument for Adler is that despite ghastly failures, capitalism developed business enterprises that provide the basis for a radically different society. These firms, which in capitalism inevitably grow quite large, develop technological and productive capacity, organize efficiently, and socialize the economy over vast spaces. These accomplishments, argues Adler, provide important bases for a transformed society. The large capitalist firm is thus at the center of Adler’s path to socialism.
Especially instructive are what Adler calls high-road capitalist firms. They give a more specific glimpse of the efficiency, productivity, and fairness that can emerge from contemporary capitalism. Social democratic forms, even those found in Scandinavia, are inadequate for this task, according to the argument, because capitalism and capitalist firms remain in control and stifle real change. With a proper national and democratic approach, however, contemporary business enterprise provides the basis for a wholly new society.
A fair and just society requires a fair and just agriculture. At present, economic exploitation and environmental harms are common in farming. Adler anticipates state ownership of real estate, and therefore farmland, and a form of democratization within farms (along with other firms) as well in the larger society and policy making. The question is whether a more populist and social democratic program supporting family-based farming could best further the goals supported by Adler.
Contemporary United States agriculture might be summarized in the following way. There are about 2 million farms in the country, and about 3 million farmers. Nearly a million of those farmers are women. The vast majority of farms—about 70%—hire no wage labor. There are about 800,000 farm laborers. Some are well-paid managers, but in general farm laborers can expect to earn about 10$ an hour. Many are undocumented and Latino and are especially vulnerable to exploitation. About half of all farm workers have year-round jobs, and the other half work seasonally. About one-third of the hours worked on farms is performed by wage or contract labor; farm operator families perform the other two-thirds. Not surprisingly, hired labor is concentrated on large farms. The largest farms, literally the largest 2%, average about 2.5 million dollars in gross cash income, account for more than half of all farm production, and rely overwhelmingly on hired labor. Crop production exceeds livestock production, but not by much.
Aspects of United States agriculture make it challenging for the Adler plan. Farming’s structure and history is different from much of the rest of the economy, and those differences potentially undermine The 99 Percent conclusions about the possibility of change that lies imbedded in contemporary capitalism and its large firms.
Unlike most sectors of the economy, extremely large businesses have not taken over agricultural production. Capitalism develops unevenly, and in the United States three different modes of agricultural production have appeared and competed with one another: (1) plantations; (2) family farming; and (3) wage labor firms. Plantation agriculture, based originally on slavery, and later on nearly involuntary labor, continued for decades after the Civil War. These were large businesses that produced for the market and were highly labor intensive. They were mainly replaced by family farms instead of wage labor farms. In most of the United States, for most of the time, farming has been family farming, meaning economic organization based around a household or a few households. Wage labor capitalist farms prevailed in some important regions, particularly California, but until recently have not been common for most of agriculture.
In general, wage labor farms in the United States have been unable to compete with family farms as low-cost producer for most of the country. Large businesses squeeze and shape family farming, but until lately the capitalist farm has largely been unable to operate profitably. Where large firms have long-term success, they need highly exploitative labor terms and depend on the state and racism to crush worker rights.
While the number of United States farms declined over the decades, moving from a peak of about 6 million farms a century ago to about 2 million now, the persistence of family farms stands in marked contrast to much of the rest of the economy. Henry Ford once competed with thousands of automobile making firms. Within 50 years only a handful remained. The entire economy had few large industrial enterprises in 1865, but that changed radically over the next century. Despite obvious gender and age and other inequalities within families, family farms solved agency issues more effectively and were more efficient than corporate farms.
Models of large, egalitarian farms operations are hard to find. Some intentional collective communities farmed. And there have been significant efforts to create land trusts and other mechanisms. New Communities in Georgia, the original model for land trusts in the United States, grew out of the civil rights movement and efforts by Black people to control land and farm. These remarkable efforts, however, remained on the margin. Further, they most often divide parcels into family-sized units and become, in some ways, egalitarian family farm communities. There are almost no significant examples of high-road capitalist firms involved in farm production. For a theory that relies on what is learned from and can be adapted from large firms, especially the high-road variety, that is an ominous sign.
Further, as a political matter, United States farmers have often been radicals. Agrarian populists that sought to promote small holding pursued many of the democratic goals that became staples of American socialism, and arguably provided the last major popular effort to control the economy democratically.
Turning to farming that is based on large-scale wage labor, a truly industrial agriculture is only possible when nature is almost completely controlled. The capitalist building cars does not depend on rain and sun appearing in the proper mixture and is not likely to be laid low by animal or plant disease or pests. Livestock production was once widely dispersed on diversified (different types of crops and animals) family farms. When capital figured out how to mainly remove egg production from a natural setting, egg production became industrialized. Poultry (for eating) came next, then hogs. Sometimes formal farmer autonomy is allowed and corporations actually take control with exploitative contracts, but over time animal agriculture is increasingly industrialized. At present, U.S. dairy is in a wrenching transformation. Very large wage labor dairy farms flooded the market with milk and created an apocalypse for family dairies.
A crucial aspect of the control of nature on industrial livestock farms is reliance on social and ecological externalities. Concentrations of confined hogs or dairy cows require immense lagoons that pollute air and water and inevitably harm animal welfare. Mass antibiotic use is required for these farms to be profitable, and thus farm animals consume more antibiotic drugs in the United States than humans do. This puts everyone at greater risk for antibiotic resistant disease. Further, the entire system of industrial animal agriculture assumes that an immense acreage of grain must be grown somewhere—sustainable grazing is only rarely attempted—and that production inevitably causes runoff that pollutes waterways across the country.
Previously, 50 dispersed dairy farms of 50 cows on pasture could out-compete a single wage labor dairy with 2500 confined cows. That likely is no longer possible. Large industrial dairy benefits from some economies of scale, but less than might be supposed. The hidden secret of industrial animal agriculture is that it is based on social externalities. Agriculture consistent with the socialist values found in The 99 Percent is probably just not possible in currently configured industrial animal agriculture where farms inherently rely on production methods that would be intolerable in the society envisioned by Adler. The kernel of socialist possibility in industrialized animal agriculture is small.
It would be possible to retain the structure of family farming and adopt important and far-reaching reforms that are rejected by Adler. The resilience of family farms in general, their efficiency, and the extent to which they overcome the alienation from work that Adler emphasizes as a failure of current capitalism suggests that independent production can be part of the basis of the society envisioned by Adler without adopting the path found in The 99 Percent.
The wage labor model common in California for fruit and vegetable production presents a somewhat different set of problems, but also offers few direct links to a better society. Here, the natural environment is amenable to profitable crop production, so long as society helps with subsidized water (farms use 80% of California’s developed water supply), but the entire model hinges on racism and the exploitation of labor. Paying California farm workers a decent wage would triple labor costs, and California specialty crops are about ten times more reliant on wage labor than typical grain production. The 99 Percent solution is to take control of farmland, pay workers more, give workers substantial say in how the firm operates, and implement wide changes that would eventually make the work itself more humane. This seems theoretically plausible, but costs of fruit and vegetables would go up substantially and trade policy would need to ensure that these firms are protected from imports based on exploitative labor. My suspicion is that farm workers would much rather control their own farms than begin a transition envisioned in The 99 Percent and could do so efficiently. Perhaps experiments could attempt both side by side.
The 99 Percent logic fits agriculture well in certain instances. The state owns millions of acres, especially in urban areas, that can be the basis for a substantial and humane agriculture, for example. Notably, the immense potential for urban agriculture is now stunted by the state.
Three final thoughts pertaining to agriculture may also be relevant.
First, democratizing institutions is hard. The United States is often described as having a weak or slow to develop state, especially compared to Europe. An increased state role, as Adler notes, makes a humane society more possible. The weak state theory fits United States agriculture history poorly. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was a product of the Lincoln Administration. USDA had a significant local presence in almost every farm county well before World War II, and immense resources were funneled through the state to agriculture. While some federal programs have been helpful, more commonly USDA has promoted consolidation, supported the wealthy, and embraced a vigorous form of racism. Further, efforts to decentralize and democratize programs tended to fail in disastrous ways. USDA incorporated what it called county committees into the immense local USDA bureaucracy. Committees were elected. While this may have helped in some respects, decentralized, and theoretically democratized local county committees became a stalwart proponents and enforcers of an effort to deny anyone who was not white the chance to farm. This system played an instrumental role in reducing Black farmer numbers from about 900,000 a century ago to a few tens of thousands now.
Second, The 99 Percent thoughtfully considers and endorses the use of cooperatives. No part of the United States economy has more experience with cooperatives than agriculture. The short summary of that history is that in some instances farmer-based cooperatives have been a force for equality. If executed well, economic democratization through cooperative ownership holds significant promise. In agriculture, however, we see that cooperatives can, and often do, become functionally no different than the most exploitative low-road capitalist firm. In these cooperatives, farmer owners have no real control. Agriculture thus has much to teach about how cooperatives can function well.
Third, while it almost seems unfair to point to political difficulties in implementing The 99 Percent, it is difficult to imagine the political change that would allow the apparently universal state ownership of farmland and the collectivization of farms that seems to be imagined by Adler. Reforms based on very significant changes in the farm economy that continue to allow small independent ownership of land will be difficult but are possible. Discussions that begin with state ownership of land and the transformation of all of agriculture into immense farms could be so difficult as to scuttle the entire 99 Percent enterprise.
When looking for a means to transition from capitalism to socialism, Adler’s 99 Percent sees potential in large capitalist firms. For agriculture, the kernel of promise for a more humane society may rest instead on an older and surprisingly resilient tradition of relatively small-scale independent production. As societies developed economically, decision makers, be they in capitalism or state socialism, have found it almost impossible to resist exploiting agriculture in order to accumulate capital for industrialization and to displace producers to create an industrial work force. Agricultural producers around the world have almost universally resisted this transition. Their aspirations have almost always been to attain and preserve independent farm production. Those aspirations, under siege now for several centuries, suggest caution when it comes to deciding that the possibility of an egalitarian populist farm structure should be discarded.