The Fight for Food

In a society where the privileged few own the means of production and control capital plus the bulk of the surplus value, the chances for anything but a formal superficial political equality are slim. Although the form of government may be democratic, the vested interests of capital will certainly take precedence over all others.  The capitalist system spells deprivation and misery for wide sections of the population, providing fertile soil for revolutionary ideas. 

Marx was firmly convinced of economic crises of growing frequency and severity that would inevitably lead to increasing exploitation and impoverishment of the working class, revealing inexorably the obsolete senselessness of capitalism, and thus they would rise in revolt, having acquired revolutionary consciousness. The subsequent development of the capitalist system demonstrated that Marx was an optimist and his conclusions premature.

Nevertheless, at moments of acute stress, such as economic crisis and having failed to provide other means of subsistence, workers will they turn instinctively against the source of their suffering which may lead to the overthrow of the established machinery of state, paving the way to revolutionary transformation of the social system. Marx only described very generally the socialism/communism, so it is easier to say what future non-capitalist society will not contain. It will not be characterised by commodity production either in the sphere of means of production, labour-power or distribution of consumer goods. The former two mentioned have been quite adequately shown to be part and parcel of capitalism, the latter is an issue in question and will be dealt with later. The point to be made here is that negating all the spheres of commodity-character also means negating money and exchange. In other words, production takes place for the well-being of the whole society, and each person takes from the public stores 'according to their needs’. Buying and selling is eliminated. By abolishing relations based on private ownership, it will enable humanity to pursue the goal to which men and women have always aspired.

 There is nothing more beneficial to the Earth's ecology and human well-being, than a healthy food system. Far-reaching social change requires sustained work on multiple fronts and a lot of it. Changing the system, not perfecting our own life-styles, is the point. We will always get our hands dirty if we live in a society dominated by industrial capitalism and powered by fossil fuels.

 Rather than take on the wage slaves need to curtail their wage slave lifestyles in order to accommodate the ever-expanding maw of global capitalism we need to target the real polluters, aka global capitalism and the war machine that it fuels, rather than go after fellow members of the working class. The driving force of mass environmental destruction is the never ending quest for global capitalist profits and growth. Whether we consider the planned obsolescence of produced goods, the destruction of rain forests for beef production or the swirling plastic garbage in our oceans, they all point back to the detrimental effects of the capitalist profit system. The disparities in wealth, education, and security that global capitalism promotes is the driving force of overpopulation. If you look at a map of the world and identify those areas with the most population growth, they are all characterized by immense poverty, exploitation, and oppression brought on by global capitalism.

In Europe, four million small farms disappeared between 2003 and 2013, a staggering 33% of all farms in the European Union. In contrast, three percent of industrial farms now control 52% of the European Union’s agricultural land.

Millions of small farmers currently produce the majority of the world’s food. They are struggling against the agri-business – the large corporations consolidating control over global food production. The former understand that food sovereignty and small-scale ecological farming can feed the world – with food production fully in the hands of producers and consumers. The latter desire an intensive industrial farming model where control over seeds, chemicals, machinery, distribution and most importantly profits, is held in the hands of corporations. Last month the European Commission approved the merger of Dow Chemicals and DuPont, and Chinese state company ChemChina’s acquisition of Syngenta. Next up is the potential merger of Bayer and Monsanto – a ‘marriage made in hell’. These are some of the biggest agricultural companies ever known, true Goliaths with market power.