Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 10:36:57 +0000 From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: M-I: CAP In message <199710272203.WAA24786-AT-spock.tinet.ie>, Rebecca Peoples <wellsfargo-AT-tinet.ie> writes >Hi Folks, > >I have been giving some thought to the question of EU agriculture. >However I cannot understand why the EU has been paying so much of its >budget out to agirculture. What has European capitalism got to gain >from the massive aid and distortion of the market when it comes to >Euripean agriculture. > >Apparently there are currently attempts to reduce the volume of budget >revenue going to the farming community. > >In short can anybody explain in a succint and clear way why European >capitalism has been so kind to farming and why it has promoted the >massive distortion of the market for farming commodities. All of the developed nations subsidised agriculture after the Second World War, in part because of their sensitivity to the charge that capitalism = famine (as had been the case in Bangladesh, where some 3.5 million died under British rule). Resting on the suppression of working class consumption, individual capitalists usually need some official persuading to get into markets that rely on it, like housing or food. In the post-war world, food became a weapon in the struggle against Stalin. Truman's inauguration of food aid was entirely framed in terms of defending the West, and promoting US values. As Michael Maren explains in The Road To Hell, food aid is a gigantic boondoggle for US farmers, who are paid massively over the odds by the govt. to dump food in fragile African economies. In Europe and Japan, the problem of food was closer to home. Britain retained food rationing right up to 1950, and my mother has a distinct memory of the minister for nutrition, one-time Marxist John Strachey, seriously singing the praises of home-made nettle pie on the radio. In Europe and Japan, governments engaged in direct subsidy to get their agriculture back on its feet. After steel, European economic cooperation turned to agriculture. Clearly it did not take long for British, French and German farmers to realise that this was a gravy-train and agricultural production rapidly outstripped domestic needs. Eventually the surplus product was being stored in 'beef mountains' and 'wine lakes'. A few years ago I was out of work and was entitled to receive, on top of the cash benefits, a whole tin of preserved European beef mountain a fortnight. It was never that tempting, but I often wish that I had, so that I could put it on the mantle-piece next to the fragment of Berlin wall. The real reason that the beef mountain was sustained as long as it was was political, not economic. An unexpected side-effect of the agricultural subsidies was that the parties of the right in Europe were supported by rural districts. Less populated than urban areas, electoral boundaries tend to give greater weight to rural voters, who proved to be a useful counter-weight to urban voters, who tended to the left. Throughout the seventies and eighties, any attempt to curb the agricultural subsidies provoked a fierce response from farmers, especially in France. As these people were an important social base for the Christian Democratic parties, they got a hearing. Only recently has the left-right divide in European politics begun to break down. Working class support for parties of the left is less active than it was, and the middle classes have largely taken them over as electoral machines. The traditional parties of the right are much less important to the ruling classes today because they do not feel the need to mobilise popular support against the left. Everywhere, the case for subsidising rural districts by subsidising agriculture has fallen away. As a measure of how widespread this process is, even in Japan, where the ruling Liberal Democratic Party relied on a rural voters to make up the numbers, there has been an attack on the subsidies to farmers of the famous beer-fed and massaged Kobe beef. That attack coincides with the break-up and corruption disgrace of the LDP. The current campaign against Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) is a part of the process of downsizing European agriculture. This disease which has been in cattle for years and sheep (where it's called Scrapie) for two hundred years is alleged to be the source of a similar human condition (Creutzfeld Jakob Disease, CJD). No evidence exists of any cross-infection and CJD is still thankfully rare (except where the Health Service infected everybody who gets pituitary gland treatment with CJD). The compulsory herd culling and the restrictions on exports have led to a considerable shake-out not just in British agriculture, but throughout Europe, where bef-sales have plummeted. It was the sense of persecution of the countryside that led to the big demonstration against the proposed ban on fox-hunting here. Not that many people are involved in fox-hunting, but by calling the demo a 'countryside rally' the organisers tapped into a considerable well of rural resentment against the New Labour city-folk. ***************** In message <l0310281cb07ac451d514-AT-[166.84.250.86]>, Doug Henwood <dhenwood-AT-panix.com> writes >James Heartfield wrote: > >>Don't Chinese people deserve cars and fridges? > >It's not a question of deserving. Life on earth will become impossible if >Chinese were to consume at American, or even Western European, levels. >Cars, and the highways they ride on, are deadly. Life on earth will become >impossible if Americans and Western Europeans continue to consume at >present levels. This is not fashionable greenish sentiment, nor is it a >product of the decline of the workers' movement, it is a scientific fact, >and for a guy who loves science, you should admit this. Well, this is a very convenient science that demands the restriction of consumption levels in China, Western Europe and America. It sounds suspiciously like the science that says that black people are poor because of a natural condition, not a social barrier. Greater technological development means more efficient use of resources, not less. Roads and refigerators aren't deadly, they bring life. They don't waste resources they save them. Rotten food is a waste. People dying because the ambulance cannot reach them is a waste. The 2000 mile journey from Brasilia to the coast is a waste, because the distance as the crow flies is only 500 miles. That means a week out of every single person's life, every single time they leave their own capital city. Life expectancy in countries with developed transport infrastructures is generally much higher than that in those without. It's not a coincidence. It's fresh fruit and vegetables, medical supplies, going away to college and all those other things that widen your life chances. No wonder socialism is unpopular in the United States if you are going around telling them that they will have to give up their cars and fridges! That's not socialism, it's austerity. Doubtless the capitalists would be delighted to see such a spectacular reduction in the wages of their employees as well as doing over their competitors in Europe and the Far East, though it might entail some diversification. Why not start at home, Doug? I know a charity that will take your computer to a schoolroom in Africa. Fraternally -- James Heartfield --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005